Lab 2

Introduction to SPSS

I. An introduction to SPSS

Start SPSS
Double click on the SPSS icon on your screen if there is one.

Or, find SPSS listed on the Start menu under Programs and can open it from there
(Start > All programs > IBM SPSS Statistics > IBM SPSS Statistics 19)
Or you can simply double click a SPSS file and the program will get started
automatically.

Open Data file

New Data

Choose Type in data > OK

Old Data
(i) Choose Open an existing data source > More files > OK
(ii) Browse the directory to search for the file and double click the file

Openolddatafile

Createnewdatafile

Import Excel File

File > Open > Select the Excel file > Open

In the Opening Excel Data source Options box, check Read variable names from

the first row of data to transfer the variable names from Excel to SPSS and click
Continue.
If fail to open, return to the Excel and re-save the file in a different version
Or just copy and paste the data from Excel to SPSS

Data Editor

Entering data [Data View]

Each row represents a single case, or subject, and each column represent a variable

Missing values: if a cell is empty, SPSS supplies a system-missing value (indicated

by a full stop). SPSS will exclude them when calculating statistics.

Defining variables [Variable View]

Defining Value Label

Select Cases
Used when we need to
analyze only some of the cases

Data > Select Cases > If condition is satisfied > If

Specifytheselectioncriteriahere.

"notequalto"

AND

OR

!!! Remember to undo the Select Cases by clicking All cases when you need to analyze the
whole sample again.
Split Files
Split a file into different groups so that analyses are done separately for each group
Data > Split File

Click Compare groups so that results for all the groups will be presented together

Click Organize output by groups so that results for each group will be presented
one by one.

!!! Remember to undo the Spilt file by clicking Analyze all cases, do not create groups
when you need to analyze all the cases together.

Save Data
File > Save as
Save as type:

SPSS Statistics(*.sav)This type will preserve all the specifications of the data file

Excel 97 through 2003 (*.xls)This file type could be read by EXCEL 93 through
2003 spreadsheet

Excel 2007 (*.xlsx)This file type could be read by EXCEL 2007 spreadsheet
Printing in SPSS (Not encouraged!!)
Use File > Print but may waste a lot of paper especially printing the outputs
May try to copy and paste the outputs to word and then adjust the size of the tables and
delete the unnecessary page breaks