Put Your Name Here:

This exercise cannot be done with the software that came with your textbook.  If you wish, you may borrow a cd-rom from Ted Goertzel or Bob Wood and install the professional version of Microcase on your home PC.  However, we have a limited number of these disks available, so you may have to wait too long to get one.  Or you can easily go to one of the computer labs on campus, in the library, campus center or the first floor of the business and science building and use Rutgers copy for this assignment.  There plenty of computers available in the BSB, and staff are on duty if you need help running them.  Try rooms 108, 109.  Sign onto a computer using your clam password and look for the Statistics folder on the Windows desktop.  Click on the Microcase Network Edition 4.5 icon.  Do not click on the Student Microcase icon, if it is still there.  You may print this page out and write your answers on the paper, or you may type them into a file and submit them to WEBCT.  If you use Microsoft Word, please just submit the Word (*.doc) file instead of converting to html, the conversion from Word to html doesn't seem to work so well with WEBCT.  We can also take Word Perfect (*.wpd) files.

When the Microcase comes up, click on Open File and open the file called TrendSmp.mc4.   Then click on Basic Statistics and Historical Trends.

Select the variable "10) HomicideRate"  and examine the Time Series Graph.
   Q1:   Which years had the highest homicide rates?    What happened in those years that might explain the trend?
 
 

Select the variable "9) Suicide Rate" and examine the graph
   Q2:  What years had the highest suicide rates?  What happened in those years that might explain the trend.
 
 

Return to the menu and select both the Homicide Rate and the Suicide Rate.    Print this table out and staple it to this report if you answer the questions by hand.  If you are typing the questions for submission to WEBCT, copy the table and paste it into your report.

       Q3:   Do these trends appear to be related?  Is the relationship the same or different in different decades?  What happened in the 1940s?  In the 1980s?
 
 

Return to the Menu and compute the Scatterplot with the Suicide Rate as the Dependent Variable and the Divorce Rate as the Independent Variable.  .  Select the Regression Line and the Residuals.   Print out the Scatterplot and attach it to this assignment.

        Q4:  What is the correlation coefficient?             Is it statistically significant?             Is it positive or negative?

        Q5:  Fill in the regression equation:      Suicide  Rate =                      +                           *  Divorce  Rate

         Q6:  Based on your examination of the Scatterplot, would you say that the relationship between the Suicide Rate and Divorce Rate is linear? That is, would you say that a straight line - the regression line - is a good approximation of the pattern?  Would you say that the divorce rate is a causal factor that helps to explain the suicide rate?