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Using SPSS: Introduction

Department of OperationsWeatherhead School of Management

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Opening SPSS in the Comp. Lab Start → All Programs → [ Analytical & Statistical ] → SPSS 20

→ IBM SPSS Statistics

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Double Click

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Starting SPSS When you first start SPSS, you will see…

Here, you can open an existing file.

Here, you can create a new file.

Or you can ignore this dialog by click- ing CANCEL

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Layout of SPSS Then you will see the main menu of SPSS

There are two sheets in the window 1. Data view 2. Variable view

Data ViewVariable View

Menu Bar

Tool Bar

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Entering Data in the Data View Window

Name of the variable

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To change the name of a variable, you must change to the Variable View window.

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Variable View Window

This sheet contains information about the way the data set are stored.

Variable View WindowName

This is where you can type the name you want for a variable. The first character of the variable name must be alphabetic. Variable names must be unique, and have to be less than 64

characters. Spaces are NOT allowed. Variable names that end with an underscore should be avoided. Certain key words are reserved and cannot be used as variable names, e.g. “compute”, “sum” and so forth.

Variable View WindowType

Click HereYou will see the “type” box

Variable View WindowType (Cont.)

This column enables you to specify the type of data to be stored in this variable.

The two basic types of variables that you will use are numeric and string.

String variables may contain letters or numbers. For string values a blank is considered a valid value.

Numeric operations on the string variables are NOT be allowed, e.g. finding the mean, variance, standard deviation, etc…

Variable View WindowWidth

The number of characters SPSS allows for a data value to be stored in this variable.

For a numerical value with decimals, this total width has to include a position for each decimal, as well as one for the decimal point.

Type the number you want or click the Up and Down arrows.

Variable View WindowDecimals

This is the number of decimal digits you want to display. It has to be less than or equal to 16. If more decimals have been entered or computed by SPSS,

the additional information will be retained internally but not displayed on the screen.

Type the number you want or click the Up and Down arrows.

Variable View WindowLabel

A sequence to characters used to identify in detail what a variable represents.

Limited to 256 characters. May contain spaces and punctuation.

Double click,then type in.

Variable View WindowValues

This is used and to associate an integer to a qualitative value when the variable is qualitative (see the next slide).

Variable View WindowValues (Cont.)

Click HereYou will see the “Value” box

Variable View WindowValues (Cont.)

Type in the code/number.

Then type in the label.

Click “Add”.

You will see the definition in this window.

When finished, click “OK”.

Here Value = 1 represents Male and Value = 0 represents Female

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Variable View WindowValues (Cont.)

Now change to the Data View window … Here are the Values Click on the “toe tag” icon The values change to…

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Variable View WindowMissing

Click HereYou will see the “Missing” box

Signal to SPSS which data should be treated as missing.

System Missing data – SPSS display a single period.

Variable View WindowColumns

How wide the column should be for each variable. Columns affect only the display of values in the Data Editor.

Changing the column width does not change the defined width of a variable.

Type in the number you want or click the Up and Down arrows.

Variable View WindowAlign

This determines the data alignment in the Data View window.

Variable View WindowMeasure

Indicates whether the values of this variable are: Quantitative (“Scale) Qualitative (“Nominal” and “Ordinal”, which are

treated differently).

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Creating an SPSS Data File

Click “File” in Menu Bar.

Then click “New”.

Then click “Data”.

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Opening an Existing a SPSS file

Click “File” in Menu Bar.

Then click “Open”.

Then click “Data”.

OR click “Open Data Doc” icon in the Tool Bar.

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Opening an Existing SPSS file (Cont.)

Then you will see the “Open Data” window…

Change the location in the "Look in" box to the subdirectory where your file is.

Select the file. Click on the “Open” button.

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All SPSS files end with “.sav”

Opening an Existing SPSS file (Cont.)

You will see the data appear in the Data Editor window

and more information about the variables in the Variable View window.

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Opening an Existing EXCEL File Get the “Open Data” window (just like opening an SPSS file). And change the location in the "Look in" box to the subdirectory where

your file is.

Use the "Files of type" to selectExcel (*.xls, *.xlsx, *.xlsm) files.

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Opening an Existing EXCEL File (Cont.) Select the file. Click the “Open” button.

You will be asked about the location of the variable names.

Click “OK”

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Opening an Existing EXCEL File (Cont.) You will see the data appear in the Data Editor window

There are some errors here…

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Opening an Existing EXCEL File (Cont.) Here is the original Excel file stereo.xls. Some Excel formatting cannot be read in SPSS.

Prepare the Excel file before importing it...

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Opening an Existing EXCEL File (Cont.) Here are the four general steps when importing Excel data.

Close the Excel file before you try to import it in SPSS. Arrange the data in a rectangular grid. Don't mix strings and numbers. Put variable names in your first row.

This works…

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Opening an Existing EXCEL File (Cont.) You may need to modify some of the variable

definitions (in the Variable View)

These three variables are useless…

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Saving an SPSS File

Click “File” in Menu Bar.

Then click “Save”.

OR double click “Save Data Doc” icon in Tool Bar.

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Saving an SPSS File (Cont.) Then you will see the “Save Data” window…

Change the location in the "Look in" box to the subdirectory where your want to save the file.

Type in the file name . Click on the “Save” button.

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By default, SPSS will add a “.sav” extension to the file name.

Saving an SPSS File (Cont.) If you want, you can choose the variables you want to save…

Click the “Variables” button. You will get the “Variables” window. Choose the desired variables, then click “Continue”

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Saving an SPSS File (Cont.) Here are two different saved SPSS files from one data set…

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Saving Data as an Excel File

Click “File” in Menu Bar.

Then click “Save As”.

Then you will see the “Save Data” window

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Saving Data as an Excel File (Cont.)

Use the ”Save as type" to select Excel (*.xlsx) files. The other steps are same as saving an SPSS file.

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Saving Data as an Excel File (Cont.) Here is the saved Excel file example.

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Reference www.uri.edu/its/ppt/spss.intro.ppt http://www.hec.gov.pk/InsideHEC/Divisions/QALI/LearningInnovati

on/Documents/Learning%20Portal/Master%20Trainer%20(MT)/FPDP/SPSS/Introduction_SPSS_Chaleunvong_Laos_2009.pdf

http://oit.wvu.edu/training/files/spss17_statistics.pdf http://www.childrensmercy.org/stats/data/excel.aspx