SPSS

Originally it is an acronym of Statistical Package for the Social Science but now it is also
known as PASW i.e. Predictive Analytics Software. It is a powerful statistical analysis and
data management system and can perform highly complex data manipulation and analysis
with simple instructions
GETTING STARTED

a. WINDOWS IN SPSS
It has four main windows:
1. Data Editor
It looks like the following:

Data editor has two parts:

 Data View

For e.g. if the data viewer contains the information about the marks obtained by
students in five subjects then students are the cases and their marks in five subjects
are the variables.
 Variable View
 It is used to define variables. This sheet contains information about the data set that
is stored with the dataset.
It looks like:

• Name
– The first character of the variable name must be alphabetic by default it is
VAR#####
– Variable names must be unique, and have to be less than 64 characters.
– Spaces are NOT allowed.
– For e.g. if you are studying the demographics then variables could be Age,
Gender, Occupation, Qualification etc.
• Type
– Click on the ‘type’ box. The two basic types of variables that you will use are
numeric and string. This column enables you to specify the type of variable.
– if your variable contains name of the respondents then its type should be
String if it contains age then it should be Numeric
• Width
– Width allows you to determine the number of characters SPSS will allow to be
entered for the variable.
– for e.g. the among the names of the respondents the name with largest
character is say Ramparkash then the width would be 10.
• Decimals
– Number of decimals
– It has to be less than or equal to 16
– for e.g. if a variable is numeric in nature like 3.1456 then decimal would be 4
• Label
– You can specify the details of the variable
– You can write characters with spaces up to 256 characters
– for e.g. if your variable is name of the student then variable name will not
contain it as name of the student in name you will write name and in label you
will write name of the student
 • Values
– This is used and to suggest which numbers represent which categories when
the variable represents a category
– For e.g. 1 for male and 2 for female.

Practice: How would you put the following information into SPSS?
Name Gender Height
JAUNITA 2 5.4
SALLY 2 5.3
DONNA 2 5.6
SABRINA 2 5.7
JOHN 1 5.7
MARK 1 6
ERIC 1 6.4
BRUCE 1 5.9
2. Output Viewer Window
This window displays the results of any statistical procedures you run, such as descriptive statistics or
frequency distributions. All tables and charts are also displayed in this window. The viewer window
automatically opens when you create output.

3. Syntax Editor Window

You will use this window if you wish to use SPSS syntax to run commands instead of clicking on the
pull-down menus. An advantage to this method is that it allows you to perform special features of
SPSS that are not available through dialog boxes. Syntax is also an excellent way to keep a record of
your analyses.
4. Script Viewer
It is used to right full programs like BASIC program.
b. DATA ENTRY
Data in SPSS can be entered by three ways:
1. Entering Your Own Data
Raw data may be entered in SPSS by using the SPSS data viewer in data editor
window.
2. Exporting Data from Excel
we can export data from excel file by File>read text data> excel file
3. Opening SPSS file
Open> Data

c. DATA EDITING
The Main Menu
File. This menu is used to create new files, open existing files, read files that have
been created by other software (e.g., spreadsheets or databases), and print files.
Edit. This menu is used to modify or copy text from output or syntax windows.
View. This menu allows you to change the appearance of your screen. You can, for
instance, change fonts, customize toolbars, and display data using their value labels.
Data. Use this menu to make temporary changes in SPSS data files, such as merging
files, transposing variables and cases, and selecting subsets of cases for analyses.
Changes are not permanent unless you explicitly save the changes.
Transform. The transform menu makes changes to selected variables in the data file
and computes new variables based on values of existing variables. Transformations
are not permanent unless you explicitly save the changes.
Analyze. Use this menu to select a statistical procedure to be performed such as
descriptive statistics, correlations, analysis of variance, and cross-tabulations.
Graphs. This menu is used to create bar charts, pie charts, histograms, and scatter
plots. Some procedures under the Analyze menu also generate graphs.
Utilities. This menu is used to change fonts, display information on the contents of
SPSS data files, or open an index of SPSS commands.
Window. Use the window menu to arrange, select, and control the attributes of the
SPSS windows.
Help. This menu opens a Microsoft Help window containing information on how to
use many SPSS features.