Introduction to SPSS

Dr DEVESH BIRWAL
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR IN UNIVERSITY OF DELHI
What is SPSS and its uses?

 SPSS is Statistical Package for the Social

Sciences.
 Used by various kinds of researchers for
complex statistical data analysis.
 Most top research agencies use SPSS to
analyze survey data and mine text data
so that they can get the most out of their
research.
Why SPSS is important?

 SPSS is revolutionary software mainly used by

research scientists which help them process
critical data in simple steps.
 These techniques are used to analyze,
transform, and produce a characteristic
pattern between different data variables.
Why SPSS is better than Excel?

 Excel is spreadsheet software, SPSS is

statistical analysis software.
 In Excel, you can perform some Statistical
analysis but SPSS is more powerful.
 In SPSS every column is one
variable, Excel does not treat columns and
rows in that way (in treating volume and
rows SPSS is more similar to
Access than to Excel).
What are the advantages of SPSS?

 One of the advantages of SPSS is that

students can import data from other sources,
when data is organized as a database,
including Excel.
 Importing an Excel spreadsheet to SPSS for
the data analysis is a fairly simple process,
requiring some preparation and a few basic
steps.
What are the main windows in
SPSS?
 There are 3 windows in SPSS.
 Data editor and output viewer are the main
windows of SPSS; they are the main windows that
always opens when we run SPSS.
 Third window is Syntax window.
Through syntax window commands can be
entered directly and the other way is through
point‐and‐click commands via the Graphical User
Interface (GUI).
How do I enter data into SPSS?

 Click the Variable View tab. Type the name

for your first variable under the Name
column.
 Click the Data View tab.
 Now you can enter values for each case.
 Repeat these steps for each variable that
you will include in your dataset.
 TYPES OF VIEWS OF SPSS DATA EDITOR
 DATA VIEW  VARIABLE VIEW
What is data viewer in SPSS?

 Itis very easy to start SPSS from the start menu

by just clicking on the “SPSS” icon.
 As soon as SPSS opens, a window will appear,
which is called the “data viewer window.”
 In SPSS, data viewer column value is known
as the record measure or the variable and
row to identify the case (or subject)
 When you view data in SPSS, each row in
the Data View represents a case, and each
column represents a variable.
 Cases represent independent observations,
experimental units, or subjects.
 This is a typical layout for data, where rows
are cases and columns are variables.
(Other data structures are possible.
What is variable view?

 In Variable View, variables are shown as

rows of cells.
 The first column shows the variable name for
each variable.
 The sixth column shows value labels:
descriptions of the meaning of one, many or
all values that a variable may contain
What is a variable in SPSS?

 SPSS Variable Types. SPSS has 2 main

variable types:
 Numeric variables contain only numbers and
are suitable for numeric calculations such as
addition and multiplication.
 String variables may contain letters, numbers
and other characters.
Which variable name will not be
accepted by SPSS?
 Spaces are not allowed in variable names.
 SPSS reserved keywords cannot be used
as variable names.
 SPSS reserved keywords are ALL, AND, BY, EQ, GE,
GT, LE, LT, NE, NOT, OR, TO, and WITH.
 Variable names can contain any mixture of
uppercase and lowercase characters and the
case will be preserved in the SPSS data file.
Types of Data
➢ Continuous (e.g. 6, 6.1852, 8, 8.341 364, etc.). between two
values exist an infinite number of possibilities.
➢ Discrete. (1, 2, 3, 4,…..., N) between two values does not exist
an infinite number of possibilities.
➢ Categorical:- values of the variable are mutually exclusive
categories, such as A or B or C or “boy” or “girl.”
➢ Counts:- where instead of measuring something like IQ, we
are only counting the number of occurrences of some
behaviour (e.g. number of times I blink in a minute).
What are the 4 Scales of
Measurement?

 In statistics, there are four data measurement

scales:

• Nominal
• Ordinal
• Interval
• Ratio
 Nominal:- nominal scale is not really measurement in
the first place, since it is simply assigning labels to
objects we are studying. The classic example is that
of numbers on football jerseys.
 Ordinal:- If differences between numbers do
represent magnitudes, but that differences between
the magnitudes are unknown or imprecise. For
example, that a runner finished first and another
second.
 Interval:- If differences between numbers on a scale
represent equal lengths, but that an absolute zero
point still cannot be defined. A classic example of
this is temperature in degrees
 Ratio:-When we can assign an absolute zero point
in addition to inferring the properties of the interval
scale. The number of coins in my pocket is an
example of ratio measurement, since zero on the
scale represents a complete absence of coins.
Nominal data
 Nominal data are used to label variables without any quantitative value. Common
examples include male/female (albeit somewhat outdated), hair color, nationalities,
names of people, and so on.

Examples:
What color hair do you have? What's your nationality?

➢ Brown ➢ American
➢ Blonde ➢ German
➢ Kenyan
➢ Black
➢ Japanese
➢ Rainbow unicorn

Notice that these variables don't overlap. For the purposes of statistics, anyway, you can't
have both brown and rainbow unicorn-colored hair. And they're only really related by the
main category of which they're a part.
Ordinal data
 The key with ordinal data is to remember that ordinal sounds like order - and it's the order of
the variables which matters. Not so much the differences between those values.
 Ordinal scales are often used for measures of satisfaction, happiness, and so on. Have you
ever taken one of those surveys, like this?

"How likely are you to recommend our services to your friends?"

 Very likely
 Likely
 Neutral
 Unlikely
 Very unlikely

See, we don't really know what the difference is between very unlikely and unlikely - or if it's
the same amount of likeliness (or, unlikeliness) as between likely and very likely. But that's ok.
We just know that likely is more than neutral and unlikely is more than very unlikely. It's all in the
order.
 Interval Data

 Interval data is fun (and useful) because it's concerned with both the
order and difference between your variables. This allows you to measure
standard deviation and central tendency.
 Everyone's favorite example of interval data is temperatures in degrees celsius. 20
degrees C is warmer than 10, and the difference between 20 degrees and 10
degrees is 10 degrees. The difference between 10 and 0 is also 10 degrees.
 There is a little problem with intervals, however: there's no "true zero." A true zero
has no value - there is none of that thing - but 0 degrees C definitely has a value:
it's quite chilly. You can also have negative numbers.
Ratio data

 Ratio data tells us about the order of variables, the differences

between them, and they have that absolute zero. Which allows all sorts
of calculations and inferences to be performed and drawn.
 Ratio data is very similar interval data, except zero means none. For
ratio data, it is not possible to have negative values.
 For instance, height is ratio data. It is not possible to have negative
height. If an object's height is zero, then there is no object. This is
different than something like temperature. Both 0 degrees and -5
degrees are completely valid and meaningful temperatures.
Toolbar
 This toolbar is available in SPSS Data Editor, providing quick and easy access to
frequently used features. The following are some of the frequent used tools in the
Data Editor.
Item Description

 File Open : Allows data files to be opened for analysis.

 File Save: Saves the file in the active window.
 File Print : Prints the file in the active windows.
 Recall Recently Used Dailogs: Allows analysis operation to use again which we have used
recently.
 Undo a user action Allows to undo the previous user action
 Redo a user action Allows to redo the previous user action
 Go to Cases: You will reach at case containing the active cell.
 Go to Variable: You will reach at variable containing the active cell.
 Variable: Information about variable containing the active cell
like Name, Label, type, Missing Value, Measurement and
Label value (if any)
 Item
 Run Descriptive Statistics: Allow to run descriptive statistics for variable of active cell.
 Find and Replace:
 Split Files :
 Select Cases :
 Value Labels :
Description
User can find and replace the values of variable of active
cell
Splits the data file into separate groups for analysis based
on the values of one or more grouping variable.
Provides methods for selecting a subgroup of cases
based on criteria that include variables and complex
expressions.
Allows toggling between actual values and value labels
in the Data Editor.
THANK YOU