Quantitative Data Analysis with SPSS - Chapter 7

Bivariate analysis: exploring differences between scores on two variables

Bivariate analysis is the analysis of two variables used to understand if there is a correlation
between them or not. One variable will be independent and the other dependent.

There are several criteria for selecting bivariate tests:

Categorical or Nominal data: When there’s no natural order or ranking (e.g.: blood type,
nationality)

Ordinal data: When the order of the values is important. There are also special cases of
ordinal data like interval and ratio data.

Means or variances? Depends on whether the researcher is more interested in the means
or the variances between variables.

Related or unrelated comparison groups? Unrelated comparison groups are independent

and uncorrelated, whereas related comparison groups are dependent and correlated.

Parametric or non-parametric tests? In a parametric test, the researcher makes certain

assumptions about the population and data, whereas no assumptions are made in a non-
parametric test. If the data is normal, it is recommended to use parametric test. If not, it is
better to use non-parametric test, since parametric tests assume normality, which can be
misleading in certain situations.