INTRODUCTION TO

SPSS
What is SPSS?
Originally it is an acronym “Statistical Package for the
Social Sciences” but now it stands for Statistical Product
and Service Solutions It is also known by the name
PASW (Predictive Analytics Software)

It is a software used for data analysis in business research.

Can be used for:
o Processing Questionnaires
Reporting in Tables and Graphs
o Analyzing: Means, Chi-square, Regression, …and
much more..
o
History
SPSS has a long heritage

 Introduced in 1968.
 Was originally developed to facilitate statistical
analysis in the social sciences.
 Early versions designed to run on mainframe
computers.
 On July 28, 2009 IBM announced it was acquiring
SPSS Inc. for $ 1.2 billion in cash
 The current versions (2015) are officially named
IBM SPSS Statistics.
About SPSS Incorporated

 SPSS Inc. is a leading worldwide provider of

predictive analytics software and solutions.
 SPSS Inc. was a software house headquartered in
Chicago and incorporated in Delaware
 The company was started in 1968 by Norman Nie,
Dale Bent, and Hadlai "Tex" Hull
 Today SPSS has more than 250,000 customers
worldwide, served by more than 1,200 employees in
60 countries.
Now the company is known as

S: PSS: An IBM®
Company
General Capabilities
SPSS has a lot of great features

 Can import data from many different sources, such as

Microsoft® Excel and SAS®.
 Provides analysis tools to generate reports, charts,
plots, descriptive statistics, and run advanced
statistical analyses.
 In additionto user interface, provides a
command syntax that can simplify
certain things, such as running repetitive tasks.
Basic Operations in SPSS
(Basic Steps In Data Analysis)

 Variable Entry (adding or deleting a variable)

 Data Entry (adding or deleting the data)
 Saving the data
 Importing data from Excel file
 Checking the data entered
 Sorting the data
 Transforming the data
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 Variables

A concept which can take on different

quantitative values is called a variable.
 Ex. What are variables you would consider in buying
a second hand bike?
 Brand
 Type
 Age
 Condition (Excellent, good, poor)
 Price

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 Dichotomous variables (having two values only)
 Yes or No

 Male or Female

 Income, age or a test score are the examples of

continuous variables.
 These variables may take on any value within a given
range, or in some cases, an infinite set.

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Types of variables

 Independent Variable

 Dependent Variable

 Moderating Variable

 Extraneous Variable

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Measurement
Scales
 The process of assigning numbers to objects in such
a way that specific properties of the objects are
faithfully represented by specific properties of the
numbers.
 Types of Scales:
 Nominal
 Ordinal
 Scale
 Interval
 Ratio
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Types of
Scales
 Nominal
 example: nationality, race, gender…
 based on a concept (two categories variable called
“dichotomous nominal”)
 Ordinal
 example: knowledge, skill... (more than, equal, less than)
 rank-ordered in terms of a criterion from highest to lowest
 Interval/Ratio
 example: age, income, speed...
 based on arithmetic qualities and have a fixed zero point
Scale

Nominal Numbers
Assigned Finish
to Runners 7 8 3

Ordinal Rank Order Finish

of Winners
Third Second First
place place
place
Interval Performance
Rating on a 8.2 9.1 9.6
Scale

Ratio Time to Finish 15.2 14.1 13.4

in Seconds
 Primary Scales
Scale Basic Common Permissible Statistics
Characteristics Examples Descriptive Inferential
Nominal Numbers identify Gender, Percentages, Chi-square,
& classify objects numbering of mode binomial test
football players
Ordinal Nos. indicate the Quality rankings, Percentile, Rank-order
relative positions rankings of teams median correlation
of objects but not in a tournament ,
the magnitude of Friedman
differences ANOVA
between them
Interval Differences Temperature Range, mean, Product-
between objects (Fahrenheit) standard moment
Ratio Zero point is fixed, Length, weight Geometric Coefficient of
ratios of scale mean, harmonic variation
values can be mean
compared
Choice of Scales in SPSS

 The default is Scale, which refers to an

interval or ratio level of measurement.

 Choose Nominal for categorical data,

 Ordinal if your data involve rankings, or

ordered values.
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TYPES OF
WINDOWS
Data view

Variable View

Output Viewer

Pivot Table Editor

Chart Editor

Text Output Editor

Syntax Editor
No. of Respondents/Questionnaires/Schedules

Data Viewer

Entering

Editing DATA

Displaying
Number of Questions

Variable View

Programming

Defining Questions

Qualitative
 1. Opens automatically if
Outline Pane Pivot table editor it runs a procedure
2. Displays Statistical results,
Navigate output Text output edit Graphs and save it
future use. for
Highlight output Chart Editor
Pivot table Editor
Text Edit
Chart Editor

Double
Click

Editing
Options
Syntax
Manually Entering Data
SPSS makes it easy.
 Start with the Data Editor.
 There are two tabs at the bottom:
 Data View
 Variable View
 Gives you two ways to enter data:
 Start with Data View and just start typing!
 Start with Variable View and define your variables
first.
 Think of variables as labels that describe your data.
 Gender
 Age
 SA ,A ,N ,DA,
DSA