1. A Basic Guide to SPSSPaul Gormanp.gorman@aston.ac.uk

2. SPSS has twotabs:Data View andVariable View 3. Data View iswhere thenumbers areinputted e.g.Surveyresponses 4. Variable Viewis where you seebehind the datai.e. where youtell SPSS whatthe numbersrepresent 5. This is whatData View lookslike with somecontent added 6. Each row is arespondentsanswers to asurvey 7. Each columncontains all theanswers to aparticularquestion by allrespondents 8. In Variable Viewthis is what the datalooks like. Think ofthis part as puttinga key to your graph,a way of tellingpeople what thenumbers represent 9. Each variable canbe named. Nospaces or specialcharacters areallowed (just keep itto simple one wordnames) 10. SPSS can deal with wordsas well as numbers, butthe Type of data shouldmostly be numeric.Data made up of words iscalled String data 11. This is where you can giveyour variable a meaningfullabel.This will be the label thatappears in tables andgraphs 12. The value tab is whereyou turn your numbersinto meaningful values.E.g. 1 = Female, 2 = Male 13. Once you have imported your data, or inputted it manuallyif your questionnaire is on paper, you can start to makesense of the data that you have.It can be time-consuming, but the results are clean,efficient and the data can scrutinized in countless waysEven basic descriptive statistics can be revealing,interesting and easy to run in numerous ways 14. GeneratingFrequencyTables:These includenumber ofrespondents,percentages etc. 15. Select theappropriatevariable/s 16. A newwindowopenswith yourdata 17. If you wantto exportyour datato anotherformat,then runthe tablesasnormal 18. thenselect thetables youwish toexport,right-clickand selectExport 19. Selectformat youwish toexport toand filedestination 20. If you wish toview Graphsor Pie Charts,then selectCharts whenchoosing yourvariables,then selectappropriateChart Type 21. SPSS willsimultaneouslygeneratefrequencytables and anycharts you wishin the sameoutput 22. Sameprocess asabove forBar Charts 23. To comparedifferentvariables,selectCrosstabs 24. Select theappropriatevariablesand use thearrows tomove theminto therows andNote that I have checked thecolumns box to generate Bar Charts sowe can see the comparisons insectionsa visual format 25. The defaulttables onlyshows the Nfigure e.g.number ofrespondents 26. To addpercentagesto the tablesclick theCell buttonand checktheappropriateboxes 27. If you wish toview specificcases andeliminate anyvariables fromyour data, suchas Mentors,then go to SelectCases 28. Select Ifcondition issatisfiedand thenclick the Ifbutton 29. Select yourvariable and Then clickthen use the = and selectarrow to the numbersend it to thatthe otherrepresentsside of thethe variablesscreenyou wish to view 30. Now you canrun all thedata asbefore, butonlyMentees arebeing used