Health Medical Homework Help

Research Question: 

How do 12th graders’ frequency of [substance abuse] differ by race/ethnicity among male and female students?

Variables used in analyses:

R’S RACE V2151 – Renamed Race/ethnicity – asked, “How do you describe yourself?” 

R’S SEX V2150 – Renamed Sex – asked, “What is your sex?”

#XMJ+HS/LIFETIME V2115 – Renamed LifetimeMarijuanaUse – asked, “On how many occasions (if any) have you used marijuana (grass, pot) or hashish (hash, hash oil)…in your lifetime?”. 

The only variable that we found necessary to recode was Lifetime Marijuana Use (labelled “Lifetime Marijuana Use Recode”). Values for the new variable are: 1 = no use; 2 = 2-9x; 3 = 10-19x; and 4 = 20+x. We decided to recode from seven to four categories because we felt that it was easier to interpret but continued to represent the data properly. 

Approach to Analysis

Brief description of approach to analysis & steps for producing crosstab(s)

We chose to run a cross tabulation in order to evaluate whether a 12th graders marijuana use differed among race and sex. Additionally, we ran a chi-square test to better determine whether or not there was a statistical relationship between the variables.