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A Simple Guide to
Using SPSS
(Statistical Package for the
Social Sciences) for
Windows
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Introduction
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Steps for Analyzing Data
• Enter the data
• Select the procedure and options
• Select the variables
• Run the procedure
• Examine the output
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Getting Started with SPSS for Windows To Start an SPSS session:
• Or launch the
software from
Start menu
Double-click on
the short cut if
you can see it
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Select Type in data
and
click OK to open
an empty SPSS
Data Editor
window. 6
Data Editor will open
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The Data Editor window consists of two pages, indicated by the
page tabs at the bottom-left of the Editor window.
The Data View is the „data page‟ on which all the information will be entered.
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Define the Variable Names
Click the Variable View tab at the bottom of the
Data Editor window.
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• The second page is the Variable
View page on which we define the
variables to be analyzed.
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• Define the variables Name that are
going to be used.
• Rules for naming variables
– Must not contain spaces
– Must begin with a letter or @
– Certain characters such as !, ?, and *
are not allowed
– Must not be one of the keywords
such as AND, NOT, EQ, BY, or ALL
– Must be unique. No other variable in
a data file can have the same name.
• In SPSS version 12 or
later, a variable name
can have a maximum of
64 characters made up
of letters and/or
numbers. In earlier
versions, only eight
characters are
permitted.
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Click the Data View tab to continue entering the data.
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The names you entered in the Variable View are now
the headings for the first 13 columns of the Data View
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Define the Variable
Click the Variable View tab at the bottom of the
Data Editor window.
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Define the Variable - Type
By default all Data are Numeric
Change the Non-numeric Data by Click the button in the
Type cell to open the Variable Type dialog box.
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• Comma format uses commas as thousands‟ separators. 1,234.56
• Dot format uses a dot as thousands‟ separator and a comma instead of a dot for the decimal point. 1.234,56
• Scientific notation is useful for displaying very small or very large numbers.
1.23E+08 represents 123,000,000.
1.23E-08 represents. 0.0000000123
• Dollar format will display data as money, i.e. the values are displayed with a $ sign in front. $1,234.56
• Custom Currency format needs to be defined before use. In the two examples we have customised for pounds sterling and euros. £1,234.56 and €1,234.56
• Date formats SPSS has a variety of date and time formats available.
Variable Type
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Set the variable's type of
ID, to String.
Click OK to save your changes
A string is a sequence of characters (letters, symbols, digits) which is treated as
a label by the system, i.e. Values of a string variable are not numeric, and hence
not used in calculations.
A string variable is a qualitative variable
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Both Type and Measure will be changed
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Repeat Setting of the variable's type with
Gender to String.
Set the variable's type of
Salary, to Dollar.
Click OK to save your changes
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Define The maximum number of characters (digits or letters)
appear in the data view window When you select String as
variable Type, and in order to be viewed in the data view
window, you have to increase the width to > 8 if you are
intending to write more than 8 characters
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Display decimal points, even
though their values are intended
to be integers. To hide the
decimal points in these variables
type 0.
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Define the Variable –
Labels
• Labels will be displayed in
the output.
• Variable Label
– Providing useful
descriptive information
of variables. than
variable name.
– Can be up to 255
character
• allows you to list a more
extensive label for your
variable. Eight character
variable names are difficult
to remember, and we
recommend that you always
exercise the option of listing
a more descriptive label.
• Useful to include the unit of
measurement in the label
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• In the Label column of the ID row, type Employee code.
• Type Education level as the label for the ed-lev variable……..etc
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• Value Labels
• allows you to provide
labels for the various
levels of a variable.
• For example, value
labels can be used to
specify that M stands
for Male and F stands
for Female.
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• To Define Variable
label,
Select the Values cell in
the gender row and
click the button to
display the Value
Labels dialog box.
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• Type “f” for the Value and “female” for the Value Label.
• Click Add to have this label added to your data file.
• Repeat the process, but this time type “m” for the Value and
“male” for the Value Label.
• Click OK to implement your changes.
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• Because string values are case sensitive,
you should make sure you are consistent
with your cases. A lower case “m” is not
the same as a capital “M”.
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Repeat the process for education level
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Repeat the process for Smoking status
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Repeat the process for Physical activity
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Define the
Missing Values
In SPSS, there are no empty cells within the data file
If you don't take steps to filter or identify this data, your analysis
may not provide accurate results.
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For numeric data, blank data fields or those containing invalid
entries are handled by converting those fields to system missing.
• The reason a value is missing
may be
– Failure to understand the
question
– Refused to answer
– Data entry mistakes
– Don‟t know the answer
– The question is not
applicable to the respondent
– answer in a format not
expected
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We need to be careful to select a value for the missing value that is one
that the variable cannot possibly take.
Example if we were measuring the age of pre-school children, 3 would
not be an appropriate choice for the missing value; 99 might be better
because such a score could not actually represent a real case.
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• Select the Missing cell in the Age row and click the button to open the Missing Values dialog box.
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• In this dialog, you can specify up to three distinct missing values, or a range of values plus one additional discrete value.
• Select Discrete Missing Values.
• Type 0 as the missing value and leave the other two boxes blank.
• Click OK to implement your changes.
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Now that the missing
data value has been
added, a label can be
applied to that value.
Select the Values cell in
the age row and click the
button to open the Value
Labels dialog box.
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Type 0 for the Value.
Type No Response for the Value Label.
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Click Add to have this label added to your data file.
Click OK to implement your changes. 40
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• Click the Missing Values cell for the sex variable.
• Click the button in this cell to open the Missing Values dialog box.
Missing values for string variables
• Missing values for string
variables are handled similarily
to those for numeric values.
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• Select Discrete Missing Values.
• Type NR for the missing value.
• Click OK to save your changes
• Missing values for string variables are case sensitive. So, a value of nr is not treated as a missing value.
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• Now you can add a label for the missing value.
• Select the Values cell in the sex row and click the button to
open the Value Labels dialog box.
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• Type NR for the Value.
• Type No Response for the Value Label.
• Click Add to have this label added to your project.
• Click OK to implement your changes
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Define the Variable -Column Format
Column Format is used to define
column width for the variable in the
Data View .
If the defined and actual width of a
value are wider than the column,
asterisks (*) are displayed in the Data
View.
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Used to define column
alignment in the Data
Editor window
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•Used to Specifying the level of
measurement for the variable..
• SPSS defines variables as measured in one of three ways.
• Scale is for interval/ratio data..
• Ordinal is for variables whose values represent categories with some inherent order between them, such as social class, attitudinal scales (e.g. agree, neutral, disagree).
• Nominal is for categorical variables with values which are not sequentially ordered, they are just names.
• By default, new numeric variables are set to Scale and variables with text (or string) values are set to Nominal.
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In statistics certain procedures are only appropriate for certain types of
variable. It is not unusual for a research study to use one variable as
the outcome for one set of analyses and as the confounder in
another set of analyses, which means that using this column may
mean rechecking these classifications before each analysis. The
roles recognised by SPSS are as follows:
• Input – this is variable can be used as an independent predictor.
• Target – this is the outcome of the analysis
• Both – this can be either target or input
• None – no role assigned
• Partition – this variable can be used to partition the data, such as a
variable which defines a test or training data set.
• Split – This is included for compatibility with other PASW
programmes 50
There are very few procedures in version 18 which require the role to
be defined. We will leave all variables with the default role of input.
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Entering Data Directly
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Begin entering data in the first row, starting at the first column.
• Enter the value for each variable.
• Move the cursor or Press <Tab> key
or right arrow key
to move to next variable.
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• Leave blank or use user-defined
missing value if no answer.
• Press <Enter> key to move to
next row.
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Each row represents a single case
(observation)
Each column is a single variable
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Change the View - Value Labels
Data entered as
numeric codes
can be
displayed as
value labels.
which can help to
make your data
more readable.
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From the menus choose:
• View
• Value Labels
• Or alternatively press this button
Change the View -
Value Labels
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Change the View - Value Labels
The labels are now displayed
in a listbox, which has the
benefit of suggesting a valid
response and providing a more
descriptive answer.
