Today we are going to work on an assignment that will help familiarize you with data formats, variables and a few basic statistics.

We are going to do some internet research.  There is a tremendous amount of data available on the internet. Pick a topic of interest to you. You can pick any topic, as long as it is interesting to you. 

 Now, I would like you to find a data set related to your chosen topic on the internet.  You must pick a data set that includes at least the following:

* 30 cases
* one nominal-level variable
* one ordinal-level variable
* one interval-level variable

I will show you how to copy and paste this data into Excel.  From there, you will obtain sums, means, medians and modes.  After that, I will show you how to import the data into SPSS and obtain the same numbers in that program.

Check this website for all information about the course.  By tomorrow, everyone should have a copy of the textbook for the course, Statistics for People Who (Think They) hate Statistics.  In addition, I require to have a USB flash drive that you bring with you to class everyday.  We will be using data sets in this class that you will need to store.