Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS)

Contents 1. Introduction to SPSS 2. Important Concepts 3. Data base concepts 4. Coding 5. The SPSS environment 6. Preparation of data file
7. 8.

Data screening Accessing Normality

9. Data manipulation 10.Data transformation

Introduction to SPSS Statistical package for social sciences used for the data entry and statistical analysis. SPSS is used by students and researchers. Main Pre-requisite Statistical Knowledge SPSS does not have a brain, it can't decide which analysis or graph is appropriate. It can only follow commands. Important Concepts Constant A characteristic that has same values for all individuals Variable A characteristic that can assume any one of several values Variable types 1. numeric(numbers only) 2. alphabetic (alphabets only) 3. string (alphabets, numbers and special characters) Variable Measurement Level 1. categorical/nominal 2. ordinal 3. interval 4. ratio Classification of Variables

1. independent variables 2. dependent variables 3. extraneous variables Data base Concepts 1. field/ column 2. record/ case/ row 3. cell 4. data file 5. data base(a collection of data files) SPSS provides a spread sheet view of data. A spread sheet is a collection of data organized in rows and columns. Columns consists of all variables names and rows consists of detail information of reach respondent. S.no 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Respondent Respondent 1 Respondent 2 Respondent 3 Respondent 4 Respondent 5 Depression 10 9 15 1 4 Anxiety 9 10 2 8 17 Psychosis 16 3 10 9 9

SPSS is meant to be used mostly for quantitative research. Using data in numerical form is coded. It is not appropriate for an in depth qualitative research. Coding It is initial step in data reduction in which units of behavior or particular events are identified and classified according to specific criteria. Usually units are assigned a numerical code. For example: Male may be coded as 1 Female may be coded as 2 Coding data makes it easy to manipulate (searching, sorting, ranking) easy to transform (SPSS functions) and easy to enter data into computer. The SPSS environment

There are different types of windows in SPSS Data Editor Opens when you start SPSS Displays contents of data and file Consists of columns and rows Can work with or have open only one data file at a time. Data View Shows actual data values. Used to enter, edit data Rows have cases (responses) Columns have variables. Variable View Used to define data structure of variable Contains description/characteristics of variables Variables are in rows Variable descriptions are in columns. Data and variable view can be switched to and fro from bottom of data editor window. Viewer/output Opens automatically when you run an analysis, display statistical results, tables and charts. Outline pane Displays headings of analysis that were run (used for navigation) Content pane Display whole content of analysis run. Charts Editor

Charts and plots can be edited in charts windows. Changes in colour, font, axes, rotations and charts types can be made using chart editor. Syntax Editor In SPSS you can paste your dialogue box choices in to a syntax window, which contains command syntax that reflects choices you have made in selecting menu options. The tool bar contains "tools" that are available when a particular type of windows is active. for example, file open, file save etc. when you put the mouse cursor on a tool in an active window, a brief description of that tool is displayed. Preparation of data entry/ data files It is customarily to first define variables before entering actual data. 1. Variable names (8 characters short form) 2. variables labels (full description) 3. value labels ( assign number coding) female = 1 male = 2 agree = 1 undecided = 0 disagree = 2 4. missing values (may leave cell blank or assign missing value codes) 5. variable type ( date, currency, plain number) 6. columns (width, adjustment, alignment) 7. measurement level (interval/ratio, ordinal/nominal) Now enter your data. Data Screening The first step in analytic process is to explore the characteristics of data. data may have been incorrectly enter data screening can be used to chek. the errors are common in data entry. Out-of-range values can be detected easily using the frequencies command and replaced in data file with correct value.

Analyze-----descriptive statistics-----frequencies-----dialogue box-----select variables----click ok. Assessing Normality Assumptions of normality are a pre-requisite for many inferential statistical techniques. there are a number of different ways to explore this assumption graphically. 1. Histogram
2. Stem and leaf plot 3. Box plot

Data manipulation Data manipulation changes the layout of the data and does not changes its values. All data manipulation commands are listed in data pull-down menu. Insert variable: to insert new variables into existing file. Insert case: to insert new cases into existing file. Sort cases: you can sort cases on value of one or more variables (ascending or descending) Go to case: go to a particular case. Transpose: use to convert rows into columns and vice versa. Merging files: to merge two or more files in to one data file. Split file: to split data file in to separate groups for analysis based on values of one or more grouping variables. Merging Add cases Merges working data file with a second data, file that contains same variables but different cases. In both files variable names should be same. Add variables Merges working data file that contains data file that contains same cases but different variables. Both data files should be shorted-key variables is used to match cases. Splitting

Split data file into separate groups for analysis of one or more grouping variables. Data transformation It means to change values of a existing variable or you can create new variables on the basis of some one or more existing variables. all data transformation commands are listed under the transformation menu. Descriptive Statistics It serves 2 purposes. First is to explore data, second is to summarize and describe observations. 1. Frequency distribution 2. Measures of central tendency 3. Measures of Variability 4. Correlation To obtain frequency table, measures of central tendency and variabilty. Analyze-----descriptive statistics-----frequency dialogue box-----selective variables----statistics (push button) -----frequencies-----statistics Correlation Assumptions 1. Related pairs 2. Interval/Ratio 3. Normality To obtain a bivariate Pearson Product moment correlation Analyze-----correlate-----bivariate dialogue box-----select variables-----OK Level of significance It is the maximum probability of committing type I error. SPSS does not really use alpha level, instead all analyses yeilds a p-value(probability value) Results are

if p is less than (<) 0.05 if p is less than (<) 0.01 if p is less than (<) 0.001 t-test Assumptions 1. Interval/ratio 2. Random sampling 3. Normlity One Sample t-test

significant very significant highly significant

Analyze-----compare means-----one sample t-test-----select variable-----type hypothesized mean in to test value-----Ok Repeated measure t-test Analyze-----compare means-----paired sample t-test-----select variables-----Ok Independent group t-test Analyze-----compare means-----independent sample t-test-----select variable-----select grouping variables-----define groups-----continue-----Ok One way ANOVA Assumptions 1. Normality 2. Homogeneity of variance Analyze-----compare means-----one way ANOVA-----selection of dependent and factor variables-----Tukey's MSD-----continue-----Ok Two way ANOVA Analyze-----general linear moddel-----univariate-----dependent variable-----independent variables-----OK Regression Assumptions

1. More cases than predictors 2. No extreme cases 3. High correlations Analyze-----regression-----linear-----select dependent and independent variables----methods-----OK Non Parametric tests Chi-Square tests Analyze-----non parametric test-----chi-square-----select variables-----OK Mann Whitney U test Analyze------non parametric tests-----two independent samples-----select dependent variables-----independent variables-----define groups-----continue-----check Mann-Whitney U test-----OK Wilcoxon Signed rank test Analyze-----Non parametric tests-----2 related samples----- select variables-----select Wilcoxon check box-----OK