Are you ready to learn how to use SPSS for your introductory statistics class?

You've come to the right place. My name is Dr. Todd Daniel and this is SPSS for
Beginners from the RStats Institute at Missouri State University. I use SPSS,
pretty much on a daily basis, so I developed this series of videos for people who
are brand new to SPSS, to get you started quickly and easily. This series is
intended as an introduction. Once you're ready to run an analysis for class, you
can move on to our other videos that cover those topics in much greater detail. We
are going to start with the basics where I teach you about the SPSS workspace, how
to create variables, and how to enter data. From there we will move on to simple
statistics, and common statistical tests. So, as you can see, we have a lot to
cover. If you are ready, let's get started with SPSS for Beginners. SPSS is a
popular program for statistical analysis. It's used often in the behavioral
sciences, like psychology, but it works well for lots of other fields. So why has
SPSS become so popular? The biggest strength of SPSS is its user interface. Now, I
might argue that it's biggest strength is actually with data handling, but its
popularity is no doubt because of that user interface, which relies on drop-down
menus, making it very easy to teach and to learn. The common criticism of SPSS is
because of its user interface. Because it makes statistical analysis simple, it
also risks making analysis simplistic. It allows people to run tests without really
knowing what they're doing, and it encourages mindless analysis. So in this set of
videos for beginners, I confess that I am showing you how to use SPSS a bit
mindlessly. But I WILL teach you about the other tests and interpretations in other
videos. So for now, you get comfortable with SPSS software, and later we are going
to learn about theory and research design. The letters SPSS used to stand for
"Statistical Package for the Social Sciences." SPSS was created for social sciences
like psychology, sociology, Health and Human Services, way back in 1968. In 2009,
SPSS was purchased by IBM and because it is now used in a variety of fields other
than the Social Sciences, SPSS is an acronym like BP, KFC, AOL, BNSF, AT&T, or IBM.
The letters no longer stand for anything and its proper name is now IBM SPSS
Statistics. This introduction is for people who have had little to no experience
with SPSS. Start by opening the SPSS software on your computer. When the splash
page pops up, just dismiss it and then we can get to work. I am going to be using
SPSS version 24, but what I show you will look very familiar even if you're using a
version as far back as SPSS 16. Let's get started with the basics. There are two
view modes to SPSS: there is Data View and Variable View. Data View - which we're
in right now - is basically just a spreadsheet, and this is where you enter
numbers. Each row represents one participant, or subject, or case, and each column
is dedicated to a single variable, or type of measurement. Right now, all of the
cells are gray. Let's just try popping in some numbers. I'll do 1, 2, 3... you'll
see that as you enter a number into a column, that column comes to life. The
variable automatically gets named, and its properties are set by default; however,
the name is VAR00001. That stands for "variable 1". If you type in more numbers...
more variables get defined. Their default names will be VAR00002, VAR00003,
VAR00004, and this can get a little confusing, especially if you have lots of
variables and they're all named almost exactly the same thing. AND also, the
default properties for each variable may not be exactly what you want, so we should
learn how to change them, and we're going to do that in Variable View. To get to
Variable View, click on this tab at the bottom of the screen. We can now see our
four variables. In Variable View, each variable is in a row, and the properties are
in columns. We will begin by changing our variable names. There are a few things
that you need to know about naming variables in SPSS. First of all, you can name a
variable pretty much anything that you want, but you cannot use spaces, you cannot
use most special characters, and the name cannot begin with a number. If you want
to use a space ,use an underscore. CamelCase works equally well where you omit the
spaces, but you capitalize each new word. So let's settle on some more descriptive
names. The first variable is going to be a random identification number that we
call "ID." Next, we will have a variable for "Gender", and then a variable for
"Height" and one more for "Weight." Now, variable names are good, but sometimes you
want something even more descriptive, and in that case, add a label. Labels allow
you to describe your variable with much more detail. For example, ID is a "random
identification number," and this is "height in inches," and "weight in pounds."
Another important property is Type. The default type is Numeric, because we're
using numbers, but you can change the Type to Dates, if you're recording dates, or
to Currency amounts. A String variable includes letters or words in the data, but
honestly, for most of what we're going to be doing analyzing data, the numeric
variable is going to be exactly what you want. Probably the only other property
that you need right now is Measure. Measure specifies the scale of measurement that
you will be using. Any statistics textbook will tell you that there are four scales
of measurement: nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio. In SPSS, measure nominal is
called "nominal." Ordinal it's called "ordinal." But interval and ratio are both
called "scale." Both of these variables are nominal. We'll leave these two set to
scale. I will quickly mention some other properties. Width specifies how wide or
narrow the string variable entries can be. We won't be using string variables, so
we can safely ignore that. Decimals specifies how many decimal places will be
shown. Two decimals is the default, but we can increase or decrease them. The
nominal variables don't need decimals because they are whole numbers. Scale
variables we can leave set to two decimals. Column specifies how wide or narrow the
columns will appear in Data View. Change the column value to 25... and the column
becomes wider. You can also adjust the width of the columns by hand in Data
View...and you will see those changes reflected back in Variable View. Align helps
you to set your data to be left justified, right justified, or centered. I like to
leave all the numeric variables right justified. There are some other properties
like Values, Missing, and Role, which are useful once we've learned the basics. So
here is what you need to know: you can create a new variable simply by typing a new
name. It's that easy. Give it a label, adjust the decimals, and set the measure.
Leave all of the other settings at their default. And if you want to delete a
variable, select it and then choose Clear. So now you know some basics for SPSS,
how to create a variable, and adjust its settings. Next, we're going to begin
plugging in numbers and running some simple analyses.