Quantitative

Techniques

M. Viswanathan
viswanthrissur@gmail.com
9447614792
 Module 5
SPSS for data analysis: data entry
in SPSS; Data analysis tools in
SPSS; Calculation of Descriptive
statistics, Correlation and
Regression; Regression model for
forecasting with SPSS
 About SPSS
SPSS

SPSS, standing for Statistical Package for the Social

Sciences, is a powerful, user-friendly software
package for the manipulation and statistical analysis
of data. The package is particularly useful for
students and researchers in psychology, sociology,
psychiatry, and other behavioral sciences.
SPSS can take data from almost any type of file and
use them to generate tabulated reports, charts and
plots of distributions and trends, descriptive
statistics, and complex statistical analyses.

There are different versions of SPSS. The current

topic is 13th version of SPSS.
 About SPSS
….. SPSS

SPSS has two windows – data editor and viewer

windows. Data editor windows stores our data and
carry out the requested statistical functions. The
viewer window displays the output or results.
When we activate SPSS, a start up window will
appear. This window will help us to select the
required options. Using these options, we can open
either an existing data source or currently used data
files. If we are starting an entirely new set of data,
we have to enter the same in type in data.
The main SPSS window includes a data editor for
entering data. The data editor has two views, data
view and variable view.
Data View
About SPSS
Variable View
About SPSS
 About SPSS
….. SPSS

The data view is for entering data into the data

editor. The variable view allows us to define various
characteristics of the variable within the data.
The entered data can be saved or printed. A brief
guidelines of the menu is given as follows:

File This menu allows to save data, graphs and

output
Edit This menu contains edit functions such as
cut, copy and paste etc.
View This menu will provide options for grid
lines on the data editor or display value
labels.
 About SPSS
….. SPSS

Data This menu allows to make changes in

the data editor. The important features
are insert variable, insert case, split
case, split file and select case.
Transform This menu can be used to transform
the variable or data.
Analyze Using this menu we can analyze data.
Window This menu is used to switch from one
window to another.
 Entering data in to the Data Editor

When we open the SPSS, we are provided with a

blank data editor with the title untitled. Each row
represents a case or an individual. For example, each
individual respondent to a questionnaire is a case.
Each column represents a variable or characteristic
being measured. For example, each item on a
questionnaire is a variable.

In order to create a variable, we use the variable

view of the data editor. Then enter a variable name.
This name will appear at the top of a column when
we are in the data view. In the Variable view:
• Rows are variables.
• Columns are variable attributes (values).
Variables can be measured as nominal, ordinal and
interval and ratio (scale).
 Entering data in to the Data Editor

Types of variable
Types of variable include numeric, comma, dot,
scientific notations, date, dollar or the currencies,
and string.
Scale. Data values are numeric values on an interval
or ratio scale—for example, age or income. Scale
variables must be numeric.
Ordinal. Data values represent categories with some
intrinsic order (for example,
low, medium, high; strongly agree, agree, disagree,
strongly disagree).
Nominal. Data values represent categories with no
intrinsic order—for example, job category or
company division. For example, 1 = Male, 2 =
Female.
 Entering data in to the Data Editor

Saving and retrieving files

To save file, simply use File Save or File Save

As. To open a file, menu File Open Data Then
Data.
we can select the file from a list of files.
 Data Analysis Tools in SPSS
The following sections explain how SPSS package
will be used for doing calculations popular in
descriptive statistics.
1.Graphing and Screening Data
Graphs like histograms, pie charts and bar charts
etc are very useful for illustrating a situation.
Histogram
Histogram shows the frequency of different scores.
Select graphs interactive histogram
to open the menu. From that menu select the
relevant variable and drag it into the space by the
horizontal axis. SPSS will create a histogram for
each variable. The same method is used for pie
charts and bar diagrams.
 Data Analysis Tools in SPSS
Descriptive Statistics using SPSS
Open the box with the command, analyze
descriptive statistics frequencies. Any type
of analysis can be done on every variable listed in
the variable box. The statistics box allows to select
several options of ways in which a distribution of
scores can be described such as mean, median,
standard deviation, variance and range.
After selecting the appropriate option like
mean, standard deviation etc., return to the main
box by clicking on continue. When reaching the
main box, click ok to run the analysis.
 Data Analysis Tools in SPSS
Data Transformations
We can perform transformations to the data. The
following transformations can be done.
Addition, Subtraction, Multiply, Divide,
Exponentiation, Less than.
Some of the functions that can be computed are:
Function Name
Mean Mean
SD Standard deviation
Sum Sum
Sqrt Square root
ABS Absolute value
LG10 Logarithm with base 10
 Correlation and Regression using SPSS
Data entry for correlation, regression and multiple
regression is straight forward because each
variable is entered in a separate column. Enter the
data for each variable through the data editor. For
example, if we want to calculate the correlation
between two variables, we have to enter the data
as given below:
Data X: 5 10 12 8 25
Y: 8 12 8 10 20
To plot these two variables we can use a graph.
Select the independent variable along the X –
(horizontal) axis and the dependent variable along
the Y –(vertical) axis.
If we choose regression, then SPSS will fit the
straight line.
To get a bivariate correlation use the menu
analyze correlate bivariate. Then select
the appropriate correlation such as Karl Pearson’s,
Spearman’s and Kendall’s. We get a matrix of
correlation coefficient such as:
Var1 Var2 Var3
Var1 1 0.55 0.71
Var2 0.55 1 0.35
Var3 0.71 0.35 1

We can test the correlation coefficient in SPSS.

To get partial correlation for the data set, select

analyze correlate partial.
Regression Analysis using SPSS
To do the regression analysis, we have to access
the main box by using
Analyze regression linear…. menu. In the
box, select the dependent and independent variable
and click OK to run the basic analysis. The out put
will be in three tables such as:
Table I - summary of the mode
Table II - Model ANOVA
Table III - Coefficients.

Multiple regression can also be done in SPSS. By

suitably selecting the dependent and independent
variables, we can analyze the multiple regression.
Different options such as stepwise, forward and
backward are available.