Activity 11.2
Preparing to Collect and Analyze Data

Suppose you were interested in determining the characteristics of states with divided governments (the governorship and at least one house of the state legislature are controlled by different parties). You need to collect data for the states including the following variables: party affiliation of the governor, party that controls the lower house of the legislature, party that controls the upper house of the legislature, regional location of the state, percentage of the state's adult population that has not completed high school, the percentage of the state's population who live in urban areas, and the percentage who are employed in manufacturing. Create a codebook and a recording form that can be used to collect and organize your data. Locate sources for these data and record them on your coding form. Create an SPSS data set (see Chapter 8 in your textbook).