Quick Tutorials

Scatter plots allow us to visualize the relationship between two numeric variables.  This quick tutorial will show you the easiest method to create a simple scatter plot in SPSS. Quick Steps Click Graphs -> Legacy Dialogs -> Scatter/Dot Select “Simple Scatter” Click “Define” Click “Reset” (recommended) Select the predictor/independent variable and move it into the … Read more

This tutorial will show you how to calculate and interpret z scores in the SPSS statistical package. Z scores are variables that have been standardized such that they have a mean of 0 and a standard deviation of 1. Quick Steps Click Analyze -> Descriptive Statistics -> Descriptives Click “Reset” (recommended) Selected the variable(s) that … Read more

This tutorial will show you how to create a stem and leaf plot in the SPSS statistical package. Quick Steps Click Analyze -> Descriptive Statistics -> Explore Click “Reset” (recommended) Move the variable you wish to plot into the “Dependent List” box Click the “Plots” button Ensure the “Stem-and-leaf” option is selected under “Descriptive” Under … Read more

This tutorial will show you the quickest method to create a stacked bar chart to visualize the relationship between two variables in the SPSS statistical package. Quick Steps Click Graphs -> Legacy Dialogs -> Bar Select “Stacked” and “Summaries for groups of cases” Click Define Move the variable you wish to display on the horizontal … Read more

This tutorial will show you the quickest method to create a clustered bar chart to visualize the relationship between two variables in the SPSS statistical package. Quick Steps Click Graphs -> Legacy Dialogs -> Bar Select “Clustered” and “Summaries for groups of cases” Click Define Select the variable you wish to display on the horizontal … Read more

This tutorial will show you the quickest method to create a simple bar chart in the SPSS statistical package. Quick Steps Click Graphs -> Legacy Dialogs -> Bar Click Define Select the variable for which you wish to create a bar chart, and move it into the “Category Axis” box. Select “Titles” to add a … Read more

This quick tutorial will show you the easiest method to create a simple pie chart using the SPSS statistical package. Quick Steps Click Graphs -> Legacy Dialogs -> Pie Select “Summaries for groups of cases” Click Define Click “Reset” (recommended) Move the variable for which you are creating a pie chart into the “Define slices … Read more

In this quick tutorial, we’re going to look at how to compute the difference between two dates in SPSS. This is something you might want to do, for example, if you’ve got a pretest/posttest design, involving a therapeutic intervention at the pretest stage, and you want to see whether the length of time between the … Read more

This quick tutorial will explain how to test whether sample data is normally distributed in the SPSS statistics package. It is a requirement of many parametric statistical tests – for example, the independent-samples t test – that data is normally distributed. There are a number of different ways to test this requirement. We’re going to … Read more

This quick tutorial will show you how to compute difference scores in SPSS, and save the results in a new variable. Perhaps the most common scenario for computing difference scores is where you’ve got a pre-test/post-test scenario, and you want to see how the dependent variable has changed between the two conditions (difference scores are … Read more

This quick tutorial details the rules for naming variables in the SPSS statistics package. SPSS allows you to rename variables either via its Variable View or by using syntax. There are a number of rules governing the naming of variables. Rules & Best Practices for Naming Variables Names can be safely up to 32 characters … Read more

This quick tutorial will show you how to rename a dataset in the SPSS statistics package. Quick Steps In the SPSS Data View, click File, then Rename Dataset… Type the new dataset name into the dialog box, following SPSS’s naming conventions Click OK The Data The normal scenario for renaming a dataset is where you’re … Read more

This quick tutorial will show how to calculate the median of a set of data in SPSS. Quick Steps Click Analyze -> Descriptive Statistics -> Frequencies Move the variable for which you wish to calculate the median into the right-hand column Click the Statistics button, select Median under Central Tendency, and then press Continue Click … Read more

This quick tutorial will show you how to generate a frequency distribution table and histogram within SPSS. Quick Steps Click on Analyze -> Descriptive Statistics -> Frequencies Move the variable of interest into the right-hand column Click on the Chart button, select Histograms, and the press the Continue button Click OK to generate a frequency … Read more

This quick tutorial will show you how to interpret the result of a chi square calculation you have performed in SPSS. The Result The tutorial starts from the assumption that you have already calculated the chi square statistic for your data set, and you want to know how to interpret the result that SPSS has … Read more

In this quick SPSS tutorial, we’ll look at how to calculate the Pearson correlation coefficient in SPSS, and how to interpret the result. Quick Steps Click on Analyze -> Correlate -> Bivariate Move the two variables you want to test over to the Variables box on the right Make sure Pearson is checked under Correlation … Read more

In this quick tutorial, we’re going to look at how to recode a string variable as a numeric variable in the SPSS statistics program. This is often done using the automatic recode functionality of SPSS, but in this case we’re going to do it manually because of the extra control we get. Quick Steps Click … Read more

In this quick tutorial, we’ll explain how to do a one sample t test (or single sample t test) in SPSS, and also how to interpret the result. Quick Steps Analyze -> Compare Means -> One-Sample T Test Drag and drop the variable you want to test against the population mean into the Test Variable(s) … Read more

This quick tutorial will show you how to reorder columns in the SPSS Data View. Quick Steps Select the entire column you want to move by click on its name at the top Drag the column to its new location The Problem In a previous tutorial, we created a new variable to hold a set … Read more

This quick tutorial will show you how to create a unique identifier for each case – i.e., each person, experimental subject, etc – within a data set in SPSS. The advantage of doing this is it disambiguates cases that might otherwise be confused – for example, if you had two John Smiths in your sample. … Read more