Data Entry and Descriptive Statistics Using SPSS

 

Label your columns:

  1. Click on the tab at the bottom of page labeled Variable View
  2. Under the column titled “Name” type the name of your column in the box and hit enter
  3. In the second column titled ‘Type’ leave as numeric

      - or click the gray box and choose string to accept categorical data (Ex. Male,             Female); then go to the last column “Measure” and choose ordinal from the      dropdown menu.

  1. Continue until all of the data columns you will need are properly formatted.
  2. To return to the data entry screen, click on the “Data View” tab at the bottom of the page

 

Data Entry for Descriptive Stats:

  1. Click on the first empty box in column 1, type in your first data point (or category) and hit enter
  2. Type in the next data point, hit enter and continue until all data for that column has been entered
  3. Repeat the above steps for all your other columns of data

 

Obtaining Descriptive Statistics:

  1. Click “Analyze” on the upper toolbar and you will see a list of analyses appear.
  2. Highlight “Reports” and another menu will appear.
  3. Click on “Case Summaries”.
  4. In the window that opens you will see a box on the left with a list of your column labels and 2 empty boxes on the right titled “Variable(s)” and “Grouping Variable(s)”.
  5. Click on your column label that contains measurement data in the left box, then click the arrow between the two boxes to move your column label to “Variable(s)”. Click on the column label containing the data groups, then click the arrow between the two boxes to move your column label to “Grouping Variable(s)”. Remember-categorical data go in the “grouping variable” box.
  6. Click on ‘Display Cases’ (below the left box) to uncheck this box; if you leave this checked, your printout will contain a copy of all your data.
  7. Click the bottom tab labeled ‘Statistics’.
  8. You will see 2 boxes, one labeled ‘Statistics’ and one labeled ‘Cell statistics’.  Click on the statistical tests you want performed in the left box and click the arrow to move that test over to the ‘Cell statistics’ box (e.g. mean, variance, etc.)  Continue until all tests you want performed are listed in the ‘Cell statistics’ box.  Click Continue.
  9. Click OK.
  10. A new window called Output will open; you can now edit the results, run more tests, create graphs, and print out results from this page. (see below for example)

 

 

Generating Graphs:

  1. Click on Graphs on the upper toolbar, then highlight Interactive and finally click on Scatterplot
  2. You will see your column labels in the left hand box, click and drag the column label to the correct axis (x-axis or y-axis)
  3. Click OK