What is Factor Analysis? Quick Data Check Running Factor Analysis in SPSS SPSS Factor Analysis Output Adding Factor Scores to Our Data What is Factor Analysis? Factor analysis is a statistical technique for identifying which underlying factors are measured by a (much larger) number of observed variables.Such “underlying factors” are often variables that are difficult […]
SPSS date variables may seem a bit puzzling at first. However, getting things done fast and accurately with SPSS date variables is not hard at all if you understand some basics. This tutorial will walk you through. You can follow along by downloading and opening hospital.sav. SPSS Date Variables – What Are They? First of all, […]
Summary The SPSS INDEX function returns the position of the first occurrence of a given expression within a string. If the expression does not occur in the string, it returns a zero. As a rule of thumb, always use it as CHAR.INDEX. The reason for this is explained SPSS Unicode Mode. Note that string values are case sensitive. SPSS Index […]
This tutorial walks you through SPSS’ main statistical functions. They are mainly used with COMPUTE and IF. Note that these are all within-subjects (or “horizontal”) functions. For between-subjects (or “vertical”) functions, see AGGREGATE. All examples in this tutorial use hospital.sav, which is freely downloadable. Within-subjects versus between-subjects functions. SPSS Statistical Functions – Missing Values SPSS statistical functions only return system missing values if all their input values […]
Computing new variables -often as means or sums over other variables- is usually done with COMPUTE. If you want to do so for only some cases but not others, use IF instead. Some alternatives for creating new variables in SPSS are RECODE, AUTORECODE, AGGREGATE and RANK. Computing Variables Tutorials SPSS Missing Values Functions SPSS COMPUTE – Simple Tutorial
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 […]
SPSS custom dialogs are extensions of SPSS’ point-click menu, officially known as the GUI (“graphical user interface”). SPSS Custom Dialogs in Menu Custom dialogs are kept in files with the .spd file extension. After installing a custom dialog file, it will appear in the menu just like an SPSS’ built-in command. The difference, however, is […]
Summary SPSS RANK can be used to create a variable holding the rank numbers of the values of some other variable. RANK is also used for discretizing continuous variables into ntile groups. This tutorial walks you through the main options along with some real world examples. Result of first RANK syntax example 1. SPSS Rank Basic Example Running the syntax below first creates […]
MATCH FILES is an SPSS command mostly used for merging data holding similar cases but different variables. For different cases but similar variables, use ADD FILES. MATCH FILES is also the way to go for a table lookup similar to VLOOKUP in Excel. Merging two datasets by id, which is a unique case identifier. SPSS Match Files – Basic Use The […]
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 […]
Concatenating two or more strings is creating a new string consisting of the characters of the first string followed by the characters of the subsequent string(s) in their original order. SPSS CONCAT Function Concatenating in SPSS is done by the CONCAT function. The most basic usage is COMPUTE A = CONCAT(B,C,D). Note that you can concatenate only strings. For concatenating numbers, […]
SPSS nonparametric tests are mostly used when assumptions aren’t met for other tests such as ANOVA or t-tests.* Second, nonparametric tests are suitable for ordinal variables too. In rare cases they may have more statistical power than standard tests. Not sure which (nonparametric) test to use? You’ll quickly find the answer in Simple Overview Statistical Comparison Tests. Nonparametric Tests – One Sample SPSS Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test for […]
SPSS date calculations are much easier than they may seem at first. The first key to success is understanding what SPSS date variables really are. Next, choose (and possibly combine) the right date functions. This tutorial will walk you through the main ones. We recommend you follow along by downloading and opening hospital.sav. SPSS Main Date Functions The table […]
SPSS” Syntax Editor window is the second of SPSS’ three main windows. As we’ll see in a minute, this is where we run commands for opening files, editing data, generating results and, finally, saving files. The Syntax Editor is recognized by an orange icon in its left top corner. SPSS Syntax – First Encounter We recommend […]
SPSS’ Output Viewer window is the window that contains all output we generate. The most typical output items are tables and charts that describe patterns in our data. An Output Viewer window opens automatically when we generate output. It’s recognized by a purple icon (or for older SPSS versions). SPSS Output Viewer Window – Example We recommend […]
