Course:

Computer and its applications

Lab11: SPSS Intro
 Research
• Research is defined as the continuous search
for truth by using scientific methods.
• Allows finding answers to questions.
• The systematic process of gathering, recording
and analyzing data that aids in making
important decisions.
 Research Components
• Title
• Introduction
• Statement of problem
• Literature review
• Objectives of the study
• Hypothesis
• Theoretical framework
• Research Design and methodology
• Report writing and implications of the study
• Conclusion
Theoretical framework:
The structure that can hold or support a theory
of a research study. Identifies the variables
used in research and the relationship between
them.
 Types of data
• Qualitative data:
Data can be observed but not measured
• Quantitative data:
Deals with numbers/ Expressed in numbers
Data can be measured (using software like SPSS)
 Data Collection tools
• Questionnaires
• Interviews
• Observations
 Questionnaire
• A questionnaire is a research instrument/tool
consisting of a series of questions for the purpose
of gathering information from respondents.
After identifying the variables of interest, the next
step involves the questionnaire formulation.
It contains two parts:
Demographic Data
Main variable data
Question types
• Usually, a questionnaire consists of a number
of questions that the respondent has to answer
in a set format.
• A distinction is made between open-ended and
closed-ended questions.
• An open-ended question asks the respondent
to formulate his own answer
• Whereas a closed-ended question has the
respondent pick an answer from a given
number of options.
 Types of data
There are basically three kinds of data:
Interval data:
• These are data taken from an independent scale with units.
Examples include height, weight and temperature.
Ordinal data:
These are data collected from ranking variables on a given scale.
For example, you may ask respondents to rank some variable
based on their perceived level of importance of the variables
using Likert type scale such as 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.
Nominal data:
Merely statements of different category. Examples include
gender (male or female), race (black or white), nationality
(British, American, African, etc.).
 SPSS-Introduction
• SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) is a
software used for recording, editing and analyzing all
sorts of data.
•  The data may come from any source like scientific
research, a customer database etc.
• SPSS can open all file formats that are commonly used
for structured data such as:
• Spreadsheets from MS Excel
• Plain text files
• Starting with SPSS:
To open SPSS, Click Start button, start menu will appear
Select All programs and click SPSS
• Select type in data.
Select: File---New---Data
Following page will open:
• SPSS has two main windows: The Data Editor
window and the Viewer window. The Data
Editor window is in turn divided into the Data
View and the Variable View windows.
• The Data View window is simply a grid with
rows and columns.
• The rows represent subjects (cases or
observations) and columns represent variables
whose names should appear at the top of the
columns.
 Lab Tasks
1. Fill the given questionnaire
2. Enter your data (variables) in SPSS (Scale Setting)
3. Save your file
After filling questionnaire, open variable view window.
In” variable view” window we will enter variable (gender, ethnicity,
age) of questionnaire. In the first column (block) “Name”, we will
enter a variable gender and press enter. The output window will be :
• As the variable gender has two values (Male (1), Female
(2)).
• We need to enter these values into the values. In the
variable view window, click on the values in order to
mention values of variable.
• When we click on the None option, blue icon
appear , click on that blue icon, value label window
will appear.
• Fill the window as below:
• Value: 1
• Label: Male
• And then click Add button. The result will be:
• Similarly we will add second value i.e female and
then click Ok button. The resultant window will be:
• Values of the variable will be added in the
variable gender.
• Similarly we will enter second variable “ethnicity” and
add its values in the same method as we added before.
• In the “variable view window” we will enter the next
variable “ethnicity” and then press enter. The resultant
window will be:
• When we click on the none option, blue icon appear, and
click on that blue icon, value label window will appear.
Similarly we will add other values i.e Punjab, KPK, Sindh,
Baluchistan, other and then click Ok button.
• Similarly we will add the Third variable “age “
in the “Variable View window”.
• We have given our questions names as “q1,
q2, q3 etc””
• In the “variable view window” we will enter
the next variable “q1” and then press enter.
Set the following scale:
• Similarly add other questions in variable view window: