Are you ready to learn how to use SPSS
for your introductory statistics class?
You've come to the right place.
My name is Dr. Todd Daniel and this is
SPSS for Beginners from the RStats
Institute at Missouri State University.
I use SPSS, pretty much on a daily basis, so
I developed this series of videos for
people who are brand new to SPSS, to get
you started quickly and easily. This
series is intended as an introduction.
Once you're ready to run an analysis for
class, you can move on to our other
videos that cover those topics in much
greater detail. We are going to start
with the basics where I teach you about
the SPSS workspace, how to create
variables, and how to enter data. From
there we will move on to simple
statistics, and common statistical tests.
So, as you can see, we have a lot to cover.
If you are ready, let's get started
with SPSS for Beginners.
SPSS is a popular program for
statistical analysis. It's used often in
the behavioral sciences, like psychology,
but it works well for lots of other
fields.
So why has SPSS become so popular?
The biggest strength of SPSS is its user
interface. Now, I might argue that it's
biggest strength is actually with data
handling, but its popularity is no doubt
because of that user interface, which
relies on drop-down menus, making it very
easy to teach and to learn. The common
criticism of SPSS is because of its user
interface. Because it makes statistical
analysis simple, it also risks making
analysis simplistic. It allows people to
run tests without really knowing what
they're doing, and it encourages mindless
analysis. So in this set of videos for
beginners, I confess that I am showing
you how to use SPSS a bit mindlessly. But
I WILL teach you about the other tests
and interpretations in other videos.
So for now, you get comfortable with SPSS
software, and later we are going to learn
about theory and research design.
The letters SPSS used to stand for
"Statistical Package for the Social
Sciences."
SPSS was created for social sciences
like psychology, sociology, Health and
Human Services, way back in 1968. In 2009,
SPSS was purchased by IBM and because it
is now used in a variety of fields other
than the Social Sciences, SPSS is an
acronym like BP, KFC, AOL, BNSF, AT&T, or IBM.
The letters no longer stand for anything
and its proper name is now IBM SPSS
Statistics. This introduction is for
people who have had little to no
experience with SPSS. Start by opening
the SPSS software on your computer. When
the splash page pops up, just dismiss it
and then we can get to work. I am going
to be using SPSS version 24, but what I
show you will look very familiar even if
you're using a version as far back as
SPSS 16. Let's get started with the
basics. There are two view modes to SPSS: 
there is Data View and Variable View.
Data View - which we're in right now - is
basically just a spreadsheet, and this is
where you enter numbers. Each row
represents one participant, or subject, or
case, and each column is dedicated to a
single variable, or type of measurement.
Right now, all of the cells are gray.
Let's just try popping in some numbers.
I'll do 1, 2, 3... you'll see that as you
enter a number into a column, that column
comes to life. The variable automatically
gets named, and its properties are set by
default; however, the name is
VAR00001. That stands for
"variable 1". If you type in more numbers...
more variables get defined. Their default
names will be VAR00002, VAR00003, VAR00004,
and this can get a little confusing,
especially if you have lots of variables
and they're all named almost exactly the
same thing. AND also, the default
properties for each variable may not be
exactly what you want, so we should learn
how to change them, and we're going to do
that in Variable View. To get to Variable
View, click on this tab at the bottom of
the screen. We can now see our four
variables. In Variable View, each variable
is in a row, and the properties are in
columns. We will begin by changing our
variable names. There are a few things
that you need to know about naming
variables in SPSS. First of all, you can
name a variable pretty much anything
that you want, but you cannot use spaces,
you cannot use most special characters,
and the name cannot begin with a number.
If you want to use a space ,use an
underscore. CamelCase works equally well
where you omit the spaces, but you
capitalize each new word. So let's settle
on some more descriptive names. The first
variable is going to be a random
identification number that we call "ID."
Next, we will have a variable for "Gender",
and then a variable for "Height" and one
more for "Weight."
Now, variable names are good, but
sometimes you want something even more
descriptive, and in that case, add a label.
Labels allow you to describe your
variable with much more detail. For
example, ID is a "random identification
number," and this is "height in inches," and
"weight in pounds." Another important
property is Type. The default type is
Numeric, because we're using numbers, but
you can change the Type to Dates, if
you're recording dates, or to Currency
amounts. A String variable includes
letters or words in the data, but
honestly, for most of what we're going to
be doing analyzing data, the numeric
variable is going to be exactly what you
want. Probably the only other
property that you need right now is
Measure. Measure specifies the scale of
measurement that you will be using. Any statistics textbook will tell you
that there are four scales of
measurement: nominal, ordinal, interval, and
ratio. In SPSS, measure nominal is
called
"nominal." Ordinal it's called "ordinal." But
interval and ratio are both called "scale."
Both of these variables are nominal.
We'll leave these two set to scale. I will
quickly mention some other properties.
Width specifies how wide or narrow the
string variable entries can be. We won't
be using string variables, so we can
safely ignore that. Decimals specifies
how many decimal places will be shown.
Two decimals is the default, but we can
increase or decrease them. The nominal
variables don't need decimals because
they are whole numbers. Scale variables
we can leave set to two decimals. Column
specifies how wide or narrow the columns
will appear in Data View. Change the
column value to 25... and the column
becomes wider. You can also adjust the
width of the columns by hand in Data
View...and you will see those changes
reflected back in Variable View. Align
helps you to set your data to be left
justified, right justified, or centered.
I like to leave all the numeric variables
right justified. There are some other
properties like Values, Missing, and Role,
which are useful once we've learned the
basics. So here is what you need to know:
you can create a new variable simply by
typing a new name. It's that easy. Give it
a label, adjust the decimals,
and set the measure. Leave all of the
other settings at their default. And if
you want to delete a variable, select it
and then choose Clear. So now you know
some basics for SPSS, how to create a
variable, and adjust its settings. Next,
we're going to begin plugging in numbers
and running some simple analyses.
