There’s several ways to open SPSS data files. The right way, however, is by syntax. The way we typically do so in practice may differ somewhat from what you’re used to. But give it a shot. It keeps things nicely organized and this eventually saves time and effort. We’ll use employees.sav throughout. Creating a Project Folder […]
Summary Some SPSS users argue that it’s not really necessary to work from syntax. If something goes wrong or a client doesn’t believe your results, you can always recover what you did from your journal file. However, the journal file is no reasonable substitute for syntax. This tutorial explains why. 1. Essential Modifications May be Missing Manual […]
Definition SPSS Insert is a command for running syntax files from within another syntax file. This may help keeping your syntax organized. SPSS Insert Command – Why Use It? Executing all of your commands from syntax may be the single best practice for working with SPSS. One of the reasons is that you can correct steps early […]
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. […]
Creating SPSS stacked bar charts with percentages -as shown above- is pretty easy. However, figuring out the right steps may take quite some effort and frustration. This tutorial therefore shows how to do it properly in one go. We encourage you to follow along on course_evaluation.sav. Part of these data are shown in the screenshot below. Example: Course Rating […]
This handy tool will set the exact sizes for one or many charts in the active output window. SPSS Set Chart Sizes Tool – How to Use it This tool requires SPSS version 18 or higher. For SPSS versions 14 through 17, you can use the syntax version from SPSS Set Chart Sizes with Syntax Tool. Before proceeding, […]
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 […]
Summary SPSS uses a handful of hidden variables for keeping track of things. These so called system variables have names starting with “$” and can be useful in some cases. The most important one is $casenum, the number shown next to each case in the data editor window. SPSS $casenum SPSS $casenum In the left outline of the […]
Most of this tutorial aims at getting you started fast and smoothly with SPSS syntax. But before doing so, let’s briefly point out some major reasons why working from syntax is the single best practice for SPSS.* SPSS Syntax – Some Advantages Your syntax file tells you exactly what you’ve done so far with your data. It holds all details of […]
Summary SPSS CORRELATIONS generates tables with Pearson correlations and their underlying N’s and p-values.* This tutorial quickly walks through its main options, using freelancers.sav for demonstrational purposes. User Missing Values Before running any correlations, we’ll first specify all values of one million dollars or more as user missing values for income_2010 through income_2014.* We’ll do so by running the following line […]
This tutorial shows how to draw a regression line in SPSS. We encourage you to follow along by downloading and opening job_performance.sav, part of which are shown below. Our data basically just hold job performance scores and IQ, motivation and social support which -supposedly- contribute to job performance. The meaning of our variables is seen under variable view, […]
While working in SPSS, it’s pretty common to reorder your variables. This tutorial shows how to do so the right way. We encourage you try the examples for yourself by downloading and opening hotel_evaluation.sav, a screenshot of which is shown below. SPSS Reorder Variables Example 1 Right, the most common way for reordering variables in SPSS […]
SPSS COMPUTE command sets the data values for (possibly new) numeric variables and string variables. These values are usually a function (such as MEAN, SUM or something more advanced) of other variables. This tutorial walks you through doing just that. We’ll use hospital.sav,a screenshot of which is shown below. Before proceeding, we’ll first set 6 as a user missing value for the last 5 […]
Most of us start working with SPSS from its point-click menu. Doing so without pasting and saving all syntax may seem obvious at first but often turns out to be a pitfall. Using SPSS syntax may seem a bit difficult at first but often turns out to save tons of time and effort in the end. This tutorial explains […]
