Analysis Exercises

The online data analysis system used on this site is called Survey Documentation and Analysis (SDA), which is developed and maintained by the Computer-assisted Survey Methods (CSM) program at the University of California, Berkeley. Documentation for SDA can be found on their website.

The following exercises will introduce you to the basic principles of analyzing survey data. You also can independently explore the data using SDA by clicking on the “Analyze Online” button on the study home page.

A. Two-variable relationships

The following two exercises illustrate how to create and interpret basic two-variable tables.

• Exercise 1. Party identification and the presidential vote
• Exercise 2. Marital status and the congressional vote

B. Three-variable relationships

These exercises illustrate how to further examine a two-variable relationship by introducing another variable into the analysis.

1. Examining potential confounding variables

• Exercise 3. Attitude on social security spending and the presidential vote
• Exercise 4. Attitude on abortion and the presidential vote

2. Examining potential intervening variables

• Exercise 5. Personal financial situation and the presidential vote
• Exercise 6. Gender and the presidential vote

3. Examining conditional relationships

• Exercise 7. Attitude on gun control and the presidential vote
• Exercise 8. Attitude on environmental protection and the presidential vote

4. Joint influence of two independent variables

• Exercise 9. Candidate character traits and the presidential vote
• Exercise 10. Attitudes on trade and immigration and the presidential vote

C. Conducting your own research

Guidance for using this dataset for more elaborate research projects