Research Purpose

Identify the level of self esteem and faith among SDA youth.
Determine differences in type of faith among SDA youth.
Determine possible causes for low self esteem and low faith among SDA youth.

Data

Valuegenesis data set - 5,000 youth randomly selected from a larger data set

Variables

Dependent variables

YSELFEST Brief version of standard Rosenberg self-esteem scale (Y420-Y424)
MFHORZ Faith expressed through concern for others (C1, C6, C8, C13, C16, C18, C21, C22, C28, C29, C33, C37)
MFVERT Faith expressed through one's relationship to God (C3, C7, C9, C11, C14, C15, C19, C24, C31, C34, C36, C38)

Independent variables

Personal characteristics

ETHNIC Racial/ethnic identification (C126)
GENDER Gender (C43)
YGRADE Grade in school (Y419)

Personal behaviors

ADPIETY Frequency of private devotions and religious behaviors (C53-C57)
ALTRUISM Monthly frequency of various altruistic behaviors (C49-C52)
YATRISK Whether a youth in in deviant behavior (Y404-Y406, Y409-Y412, Y415-Y417)

Church

CLWARM Perception that the local church is a warm and caring place (C111, C113, C115, C119)

Family

YDADREL Youth report of father's religiousness (Y298)
YMOMREL Youth report of mother's religiousness (Y299)
INCOME Yearly household income (C156)

Friends

YPEERREL Peer religiousness (Y372)

School

YCARET Youth's attitude toward teachers (Y348-Y350)

Tasks to do

Become familiar with the variables
Screen the data
Describe the sample
Make new variables
Identify the level of self esteem and faith
Identify variables related to self esteem and faith

Become familiar with the data

• What are the variables and values for each variable?
• What is the population and sample?
• What type of scale is each variable?
• Which variables are quantitative and which are qualitative?
• Which variables are continuous, discrete, or discrete approximation of continuous variables?
• What is the distribution of scores for each variable?
  frequency distribution, bar chart, line chart, histogram

Screen the data

• Are there any outliers that suggest bad data?

Describe the sample

• What are low, average, and high scores on each variable?
  mean, median, mode, quartiles

• How variable are scores on each variable?
  range, standard deviation

Make new variables

• What variables should be recoded?
• What variables should be combined to make new variables?
• How should these variables be combined?
  z scores

Identify the level of self esteem and faith

• What is our best estimate of the population values for self esteem and faith?

Identify variables related to self esteem and faith

• What dichotomous variables are related to self esteem and faith?
  independent-samples t-test

• What differences exists between types of faith?
  dependent-samples t-test

• What quantitative variables are related to self esteem and faith?
  scatterplot
  correlation matrix

• What categorical variables are related to levels of self esteem and faith?
  chi square test of independence