method to analyse ordinal and nominal variables

Posted by bgreen on Sep 03, 2006; 12:33am
URL: http://spssx-discussion.165.s1.nabble.com/method-to-analyse-ordinal-and-nominal-variables-tp1070718.html

I am hoping for some advice on a question that is more a statistical than
an SPSS question.

I have been asked to look at data that consists of people from 3 groups. I
wanted to examine whether there are group differences (e.g age, marital &
employment status, previous treatment history, previous drug use). With the
exception of age I originally had thought of using the chi-square, to
determine whether than was any difference in the percentage of each group
with certain characteristics. However, in addition to an initial concern
about interpreting the chi-square when there are 3 groups there is the
issue that the groups are in effect also ordinal variables -  as group
membership is based on crime committed, which vary in severity.


My questions are:

1. Is it problematic treating group membership both as a dependent and an
independent variable? If so, what alternative analysis in SPSS should be used?

2. If not

(a) is the chi-square the preferred method of analysis to test for sample
differences for the categorical variables such as employment status & other
variables which are not to be used to model offence severity?

(b) is an ordinal logistic regression using the symptom variables (present
or absent) as predictors and group as the IV a reasonable option?


Any assistance is appreciated,

regards

Bob Green