Introduction to SPSS

Object of the class

What is SPSS?
SPSS interface:
Data view and Variable view
How to define variables in SPSS
How to enter data in SPSS
How to import external data into SPSS
How to calculate(Transforming data) new
variable
How to get descriptive statistics
 Introduction: What is SPSS?
Originally it is an acronym of Statistical Package
for the Social Science but now it stands for
Statistical Product and Service Solutions

One of the most popular statistical packages

which can perform highly complex data
manipulation and analysis with simple
instructions
 
Types of Variables
What are variables you would
consider in buying a second
hand bike?

 Brand (Trek, Raleigh)

 Type (road, mountain, racer)
 Components (Shimano, no
name)
 Age
 Condition (Excellent, good, poor)
 Price
 Frame size
 Number of gears

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Rowntree, D. (1981). Statistics without tears. London: Penguin Books.
 Types of Scales
Nominal- objects or people are
categorized according to some criterion
(gender, job category)
Ordinal- Categories which are ranked
according to characteristics (income-
low, moderate, high)
Interval- contain equal distance between
units of measure- but no zero (calendar
years, temperature)
Ratio- has an absolute zero and
consistent intervals (distance, weight)
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 Parametric vs Non-
parametric
Parametric stats are more powerful than non-
parametric stats- for real numbers- T test
Non-parametric stats are not as powerful but
good for category variables - Mann-Whitney U
(likert)

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 Opening SPSS
 Start → All Programs → SPSS Inc→ SPSS 21.0 →
SPSS 21.0
 Layout of SPSS
 The Data Editor window has two views that can be selected from the lower
left hand side of the screen.
 Data View is where you The place to enter data (Columns: variables , Rows:
records)
 Variable View is where you can specify the format of your data when you are
creating a file or where you can check the format of a pre-existing file.
 The data in the Data Editor is saved in a file with the extension .sav.

ICONS

MENU BAR

START-UP
DIALOGS
BOX
 SPSS Menu &Toolbars

 File, Edit, View, Window, Help: Similar to most windows applications.

 File - Standard options for opening, saving, printing and exiting
 Edit - Standard commands to undo, redo, cut, copy and paste
 View - Options for showing/hiding toolbars, displaying values or their
labels in Data Editor
 Window - Provides option for switching between different SPSS
windows
 Help – Contains SPSS help system
 Data – Used to manipulate the data; sort, merge.. etc.
 Transform - Creation of new variables.
 Analyze - Heart of SPSS. This menu provides access to the statistical
procedures for analysing your data set. All the items on the analyze
menu have sub menus.
 Graphs - Provide options to create high quality plots and charts.
 Utilities - Used to display information on individual variables.
Data View
 The Data View
 Data View – Used for entering, editing and modifying data.

Click
Variable View
 Used to define the type of information that is entered in to each column in
dataview.

Click
 Variable View window : Name
 In this column, type in the brief variable name that will be used to identify each of the
variables in the data file (listed in your codebook). Keep these variable names as
short as possible, not exceeding 64 characters
 Each variable name must be unique, must start with a letter, and cannot contain spaces or
symbols
 Try to give meaningful variable names:
 Describing the characteristic: for example, age
 Linking to the questionnaire: for example, P1Q3

Certain SPSS keywords

are no allowed as variable
names they are:
ALL TO
WITH BY
AND OR
NOT EQ
NE LE
LT GE
GT
Variable View window: Type
 Type
 Click on the ‘type’ box. The two basic types of variables that you will use are
numeric and string. This column enables you to specify the type of variable.

 Numeric - Numeric variables:

 Numeric measurements
 Codes
 Definition of the size of the
variable

 String (alphanumeric) - String

variables contain words or
characters; strings can include
numbers but, taken here as
characters, mathematical
operations cannot be applied
to them. The maximum size of
a string variable is 255
characters
 Variable View window: Width
 Width
Width allows you to determine the number of
characters SPSS will allow to be entered for the
variable
Variable View window: Decimals
Decimals
Number of decimals
It has to be less than or equal to 16

3.14159265
Variable View window: Label
Label
The Label column allows you to provide a longer
description for your variable than used in the Name
column. This will be used in the output generated from
the analyses conducted by SPSS. For example, you may
wish to give the label Total Optimism to
your variable TOPTIM.
 Variable View window: Values
 In the Values column you can define the meaning of the values you have used to
code your variables. I will demonstrate this process for the variable Sex.

 Click the cell in the values column as shown below

 For the value, and the label, you can put up to 60 characters.
 After defining the values click add and then click OK.
 Variable View window: Missing
Sometimes researchers assign specific values to indicate missing values for their
data.
This is not essential—SPSS will recognise any blank cell as missing data. So if you
intend to leave a blank when a piece of information is not available, it is not
necessary
to do anything with this Variable View column.
If you do intend to use specific missing value codes (e.g. 99=not applicable), you
must specify this value in the Missing section, otherwise SPSS will use the value as
a
legitimate value in any statistical analyses.
• Click in the cell and then on the shaded box
• with three dots that appears.
• Choose the option Discrete missing values and type the value (e.g. 99) in
the space provided. Up to three values can be specified.
• Click on OK.

If you are using these special codes, it is also a good idea

to go back and label these values in the Values column.
Variable View window: Columns and Align
 Columns sets the amount of space reserved to display the contents of the
variable in Data View; generally the default value is adequate
 Align sets whether the contents of the variable appear on the left, centre or right
of the cell in Data View
 Numeric variables are right-hand justified by default and string variables left-
hand justified by default; the defaults are generally adequate

Variable View window: Measure

 Levels of measurement:
 Nominal
 Ordinal
 Interval
 Ratio
 In SPSS, interval and ratio are designated together as Scale
 The default for string variables is Nominal
 The default for numeric variables is Scale
Saving the file
The file must always be saved in order to save
the work that has been done to date:
File/Save ( Move to the target directory - Enter a
file name – Save )
Output Viewer
 Output Viewer
Displays output and errors. Extension of the saved file will
be “spv.”
Sorting the data
 Click ‘Data’ and then click Sort Cases
 Sorting the data (cont’d)
 Double Click ‘Name of the students.’ Then click
ok.

Click

Click
Transforming data / COMPUTING VALUES
Computing a value means taking existing data and using them to create a
new variable in the form of a numeric expression.
 Click ‘Transform’ and then click ‘Compute Variable…’
 Transforming data (cont’d)
 A new variable ‘lnheight’ is added to the table