BMSC100 – Semester 2, 2020

Practical 2 – Biometric sampling and Basic Descriptives

Collecting biometric data

This is an exercise in collecting data and entering those data into a Google form (found on LEO under the
“Assessment” tab). Read through the instructions BEFORE starting to collect your data.

The data you collect today will be collated with that from other ACU statistics students. They will then
be used in subsequent practical classes to address a range of questions about average body dimensions,
variation in these dimensions, and relationships among the dimensions. Data collected will be de-
identified before being used to preserve student anonymity.

Method for data collection

For each student in the class we would like to have data in the spreadsheet for height, forearm length,
lower-leg length, and maximum hand span

 As a class, discuss the most accurate method of data collection before starting
 Decide as a class what the appropriate unit of measurement is for height
 Each student needs to find a wall in their house where they can measure their height. Record
the value of your height in the Google form.
 Select a unit of measurement for forearm, lower-leg length and hand span. Discuss among the
class whether this should be the same unit of measurement
 Measure forearm length according to Figure 1a and lower-leg length as in Figure 1b – pay
careful attention to the end points indicated by the figures
 Record the maximum hand span of each student in the spreadsheet by placing the hand palm-
down on a flat surface as shown in Figure 1c
 Measure your resting heart rate and heart rate after 10 consecutive star jumps (see
https://www.cardiosmart.org/~/media/Documents/Fact%20Sheets/en/zu1592.ashx for
instructions on how to do this.)

Enter your data into the Google form provided on LEO. Data entry and checking data is very important
and is where many mistakes are made before data are even analysed. It is important to check all the
values you have entered into the form.
 a

b c

Figure 1. a) Forearm length (between the vertical lines); b) lower-leg length (between the calliper
arms); and c) Hand span measure from outer edge of little finger to outer edge of thumb.

For each student, we would also like to have data recorded for the following fields:

 Campus
 Sex (male or female)
 Favourite video conferencing platform
 Age
Basic Descriptive Statistics
Referring back to Practical 1, complete the exercises below.

Import the file “Practical 2 Data.xlsx” into SPSS. You can do this by going to FILE  IMPORT DATA 
EXCEL and then locating the file (you will need to have it downloaded to your computer).

The data you have is of patient mean arterial pressures (MAP). MAP is the average arterial pressure
in one cardiac cycle, systole (contracting) and diastole (resting) and is measured in mmHg
(millimetres of mercury).

Using SPSS:

1. Generate descriptive statistics to show the mean, standard deviation, variance, minimum,
maximum, range of the MAP for all patients. Paste your output between the lines below.

Descriptive Statistics

N Range Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation Variance

StatisticStatisticStatisticStatisticStatisticStd. Error StatisticStatistic

Mean Arterial Pressure (mmHg) 47 67.0 21.0 88.0 56.191 2.6749 18.3382
336.289

Valid N (listwise) 47

2. What is the sample size of this data set? What letter is used to show this in SPSS?

3. Can you get the two tables below? What does each table represent?

The amount of patients

N Range Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation Variance

Mean Arterial Pressure 29 64.0 21.0 85.0 55.724 18.8697 356.064

(mmHg)

Valid N (listwise) 29

Descriptive Statisticsa

N Range Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation Variance

Mean Arterial Pressure 18 61.0 27.0 88.0 56.944 17.9590 322.526

(mmHg)

Valid N (listwise) 18

4. Produce a histogram of the MAP data and fit a normal curve to it. It should look like the
graph below:
Would you say that the MAP data fits within the bell (normal) curve?

4. Run a Kolmogorov-Smirnov test on the same data (make sure you have learnt both ways to do
this) you used in Question 3.

Method 1: ANALYZE  NONPARAMETRIC TESTS  LEGACY DIALOGS  1-SAMPLE K-S… Place

Method 2: ANALYZE  NONPARAMETRIC TESTS  ONE SAMPLE under the “Objective” tab, select
“Customize analysis”. Under the “Fields” tab, move Mean Arterial Pressure (mmHg) to the Test
Fields. Under the “Settings” tab, check “Test observed distribution against hypothesized
(Kolmogorov-Smirnov test). then click RUN.

What is the P-value? Paste your output for each method between the lines below.
Method 1

One-Sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test

Mean Arterial Pressure (mmHg)

N 2

Normal Parametersa,b Mean 63.000

Std. Deviation .0000c

a Test distribution is Normal.

b Calculated from data.

c The distribution has no variance for this variable. One-Sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test cannot be
performed.

Method 2

One-Sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov Normal Test Summary

Total N 2

Most Extreme Differences Absolute .260

Positive .260

Negative -.260

Test Statistic .260

Asymptotic Sig.(2-sided test) .a

a Cannot be computed because there are less than 5 records.

5. Using SPSS, create boxplots using Sex as the categorical x-axis and Mean Arterial Pressure
(mmHg) as your continuous y-axis. Paste your output below.

How many outliers are there for each sex?

Zero

6. Using Chart Builder (GRAPHS  CHART BUILDER) create a bar chart that shows Sex as the
categorical x-axis and the Maximum Mean Arterial Pressure (mmHg) as the continuous y-axis. Which
of the sexes has the highest MAP? Which of the sexes has the lowest MAP?

Higher: Male

7. An important feature of SPSS is the ability to recode old variables into new ones. This is useful for
creating intervals or categories for age groups. The data set you have consists of patients aged
between 17 and 22, let’s say we are interested in counting how many patients of each age group we
have, we can do this by recoding our original ages values into new values.

TRANSFORM  RECODE INTO DIFFERENT VARIABLES and recode Age (years) into a new variable
called “Age_Cat”. Click “Old and New Values” and use the following table as a guide:
 New value Description
0 Patients 17 years of age
1 Patients 18 years of age
2 Patients 19 years of age
3 Patients 20 years of age
4 Patients 21 years of age
5 Patients 22 years of age

Once you have recoded your ages, you can now run a frequency analysis to see how many patients
are in each age group. ANALYZE  DESCRIPTIVE STATISTCS  FREQUENCIES, place “Age_Cat” into
the Variable(s): box as shown below, make sure “Display frequency tables” is checked and then click
OK. Paste your SPSS output below:

8. In question 7 above, you will see that SPSS spits out the output in just numbers (see image below).

When completing assessment tasks, it is important to ensure that the SPSS output you have is
comprehensible and easy to understand. To do this, you need to relabel the numbers to their
corresponding descriptions. There are two ways to do this.

Method 1: Simply double click on the frequency table and you can individually change the numbers
to descriptions ie. “.00” would become “17 years of age”.

Method 2: Go to Variable View and under the “Values” column, you can change the descriptions by
clicking the button for the Age_Cat variable. See the image below:
Now when you run the frequency analysis again, you should see the below:

It is so important to present your work well and marks will be awarded for ease of read of the SPSS
output that you have provided.

8. Finally, let’s use the explore option for descriptive statistics to get the 95% confidence interval.
ANALYZE  DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS  EXPLORE. Move Mean Arterial Pressure (mmHg) to the
dependent list. Click Statistics and make sure the options are the same as shown below then click
Continue:
Click Plots and make sure the options are the same as shown below then click Continue:

Under “Display” make sure that “Both” is selected then click OK.

You are able to get the 95% Confidence Interval from the table. What are the lower and upper
bounds for the MAP data?

Well done! You now have the SPSS knowledge and skills to complete Submission 1 of Assessment
Task 2A. Please ensure that you are familiar with all the SPSS procedures and features in Practical
1 and Practical 2 before getting a start on your Assessment Task 2A. If you need help, please ask
your LIC or tutor for assistance but remember that as this is an assessment task, LICs and tutors
can only point you in the right direction and you will need to work hard to grasp the concepts and
understand how to use the SPSS software yourself.