Data Analysis
SPSS Data Analysis
Selecting Cases
Creating Tables in SPSS
Running simple contingency tables in SPSS is easy enough. However, the default format is inconvenient and doesn’t meet APA standards. This tutorial walks you through 3 options for creating the desired tables: CROSSTABS is easy but requires some (manual) editing. CTABLES is faster but a bit harder and requires a custom tables license. TABLES is fast but rather challenging. We’ll […]
The most basic table in statistics is probably a simple frequency distribution. Sadly, basic frequency tables from SPSS are monstrous. On top of that, they don’t meet APA recommendations. So how to create better frequency tables -preferably fast? This tutorial shows a cool trick for doing just that! We’ll use bank_clean.sav throughout, part of which is shown below. Why […]
Set Up Project Folder and Open Data; SPSS Data File Inspection; SPSS Categorical Variable Inspection; SPSS Metric Variable Inspection; Optionally: Edit Data; Choose and Run Tables/Charts/Tests. 1. Set Up Project Folder and Open Data The biggest waste of time and effort in SPSS is probably not keeping projects organized. A related pitfall is not regularly making backup copies of the entire […]
Tables with statistics (means, sums and many more) for metric variables are easily created with DESCRIPTIVES. For reporting such descriptives for groups of cases separately, try MEANS. Frequency distributions and statistics (median, percentiles and more) for categorical variables are generated with FREQUENCIES. Frequencies or percentages for combinations of two or more categorical variables are created with CROSSTABS, which can also run chi-square tests. […]
SPSS offers three ways for analyzing subsets of cases. After running SPLIT FILE, output tables and charts will show results for subsets of cases separately. Second, you can temporarily FILTER out cases you’d like to exclude from analysis as shown in the screenshot. Third, you can permanently remove cases from your data with SELECT IF. Analyzing Subsets of Cases SPSS FILTER […]
Summary This tutorial shows how to create proper tables and means charts for multiple metric variables. If statistical assumptions are satisfied, these may be followed up by a repeated measures ANOVA. We’ll use income 2010 through income_2014 from freelancers.sav throughout this tutorial. SPSS FREQUENCIES for Inspecting Histograms We’ll first inspect the data in income_2010 through income_2014 by running basic histograms. This […]
Summary This tutorial shows how to create nice tables and charts for comparing multiple dichotomous or categorical variables. We recommend following along by downloading and opening freelancers.sav. The question we’ll answer is in which sectors our respondents have been working and to what extent this has been changing over the years 2010 through 2014. Variables sector_2010 through sector_2014 contain the necessary information. SPSS Frequency […]
This tutorial shows how to create nice tables and charts for comparing multiple dichotomous variables. If statistical assumptions are satisfied, these may be followed up by a McNemar test (2 variables) or a Cochran Q test (3+ variables). We’ll use the freelancers.sav data throughout. SPSS DESCRIPTIVES Table The simplest way to compare multiple dichotomous variables is simply running DESCRIPTIVES: as long as […]
When analyzing your data, you sometimes just want to gain some insight into variables separately. The first step in doing so is creating appropriate tables and charts. This tutorial shows how to do so for dichotomous or categorical variables. We recommend you follow along by downloading and opening smartphone_users.sav. SPSS Frequency Tables We’d like to know which smartphone brands were […]
Introduction When reporting on data, we usually summarize our variables. The most basic way for doing so is presenting their frequency distributions. Visualizing these as histograms tends to give immediate insight into what a variable ‘looks like’, especially when many distinct values are present. However, frequency distributions often provide more detail than we actually need. […]
Introduction A previous tutorial introduced some summary statistics appropriate for both categorical as well as metric variables. Now it’s time to turn to some measures that apply to metric variables exclusively. The most important ones are the mean (or average), variance and standard deviation. Mean Most of us are probably familiar with the mean (or average) but […]
Summary This tutorial will investigate the association between metric variables with nice tables and charts. As an example, we’ll use income_2010 and income_2011 from freelancers.sav. Quick Data Check Before jumping into analyses, let’s first just inspect whether both variables have plausible values. A fast way for doing so is generating a histogram by running FREQUENCIES. The syntax below does just that. […]
Summary This tutorial shows how to run nice tables and graphs for investigating the association between a metric and a categorical variable. If statistical assumptions are met, these may be followed up by an ANOVA. As an example, we’ll use freelancers.sav and see whether (and how) sector_2010 is related to income_2010. Data Inspection and FILTER We’ll first inspect FREQUENCIES for sector_2010 by running the syntax below […]
Summary This tutorial shows how to create nice tables and charts for studying the association between a dichotomous and a metric variable. If statistical assumptions are met, these may be followed up by an independent samples t test. As an example, we’ll investigate whether there’s an association between income_2010 and gender in freelancers.sav: is the average income over 2010 equal for […]
This tutorial walks through running nice tables and charts for investigating the association between categorical or dichotomous variables. If statistical assumptions are met, these may be followed up by a chi-square test. As an example, we’ll see whether sector_2010 and sector_2011 in freelancers.sav are associated in any way. SPSS Quick Data Check Before doing anything else, let’s first just take a quick […]
SPSS CROSSTABS produces contingency tables: frequencies for one variable for each value of another variable separately. If assumptions are met, a chi-square test may follow to test whether an association between the variables is statistically significant. This tutorial, however, aims at quickly walking through the main options for CROSSTABS. We’ll use freelancers.sav throughout this tutorial as a test data […]
In SPSS, SELECT IF deletes cases (rows of data) that don’t satisfy some condition(s). Like so, SELECT IF basically means “don’t delete if …” A minimal example isSELECT IF(GENDER = 1). SPSS SELECT IF – Some Examples Say we collected data on our employees and the resulting data file is employees.sav. Our client is only interested in female […]
Summary SPSS MEANS produces tables containing means and/or other statistics for different groups of cases. These groups are defined by one or more categorical variables. If assumptions are met, MEANS can be followed up by an ANOVA. This tutorial walks through its main options, pointing out some tips and tricks. You may follow along by downloading and opening freelancers.sav. […]
Summary SPSS DESCRIPTIVES generates a single table with descriptive statistics for one or more variables. It can also add z-scores to your data. We’ll walk through its major options using freelancers.sav. The screenshot below shows part of its data view. User Missing Values Before running any descriptives, we first need to specify some user missing values for income_2010 through […]
SPSS FREQUENCIES command can be used for much more than frequency tables; it’s also the easiest way to obtain basic charts such as histograms and bar charts. On top of that, it provides us with percentiles and some other statistics. Plenty of reasons for taking a closer look at this ubiquitous SPSS command. We’ll use employees.sav throughout […]
