SPSS Statistics For Dummies

Jesus Salcedo, Keith McCormick

• Publisher: For Dummies
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781119560821
• Edition: 4
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Statistics for Business & Economics
• Index: Economics

The fun and friendly guide to mastering IBM's Statistical Package for the Social Sciences

Written by an author team with a combined 55 years of experience using SPSS, this updated guide takes the guesswork out of the subject and helps you get the most out of using the leader in predictive analysis.

Covering the latest release and updates to SPSS 27.0, and including more than 150 pages of basic statistical theory, it helps you understand the mechanics behind the calculations, perform predictive analysis, produce informative graphs, and more. You'll even dabble in programming as you expand SPSS functionality to suit your specific needs.

• Master the fundamental mechanics of SPSS
• Learn how to get data into and out of the program
• Graph and analyze your data more accurately and efficiently
• Program SPSS with Command Syntax

Get ready to start handling data like a pro—with step-by-step instruction and expert advice!

Part 1

Getting Started with SPSS

IN THIS PART …

Find out what SPSS is all about.

Choose the right SPSS.

Get a feel for SPSS with a simple first example session.

Chapter 1

Introducing SPSS

IN THIS CHAPTER

Considering the quality of your data

Communicating with SPSS

Seeing how SPSS works

Finding help when you’re stuck

A statistic is a number, but it's a special kind of number. A statistic is a measurement of some sort. It’s fundamentally a count of something — occurrences, speed, amount, or whatever. A statistic is calculated using a sample. In a sense, a sample is the keyhole you have to peer through to see the population, which is what you’re trying to understand. The value at the population level — the average height of an American male, for instance — is called a parameter. Unless you’ve got all the data there is, and you’ve collected a census of the population, you have to make do with the data in your sample. The job of SPSS is to calculate. Your job is to provide a good sample. Together you try to understand the population even though all you have is a sample.

In this chapter, we discuss the importance of having accurate, reliable data, and some of the implications when this is not the case. We talk also about how best to organize your data in SPSS and the different kinds of files that SPSS creates. We take a trip down memory lane and discuss the origins of SPSS so you can understand all of its many names. We discuss what can be done in the program and the different ways of communicating with the software. Finally, we spend some time discussing different ways in which you can get help when navigating SPSS.

SPSS’s Job, Our Job, and Your Job

It's important to have appropriate expectations. In this section, we discuss the various roles that all parties play with regard to learning to use SPSS.

SPSS’s job

After you give SPSS data and instructions, it will perform the calculations for you. The data and the metadata — the information about the data — have to be correct. (We have a lot to say about metadata.) The instructions have to be correct as well. Correct data processed with the wrong technique won’t give you the results you need.

SPSS won’t make math errors. That’s not the kind of errors computers make. They always do exactly what we tell them to do, and sometimes that's the problem. SPSS’s job is to take data that has been declared correctly and produce statistical results in the form of tables and charts that allow you to draw conclusions about your data — if you know how to interpret those results.

Our job

Your authors, Jesus and Keith, have had so many hours using SPSS that we’ve lost count. You may have heard of the somewhat controversial 10,000 hour rule, which states that you need that many hours of “deliberate practice” to truly master a complex subject. Well, you’ll be pleased to know that Jesus and Keith each have more than 10,000 classroom hours teaching SPSS in addition to decades of using it on our own projects.

As the authors, we are primarily responsible for the following:

• Making the book easy to read: We know where to focus your attention when you're getting started because we’ve helped thousands of SPSS beginners get started.
• Walking you through how to set up everything properly: Parts 1 and 2 focus on getting started with SPSS as well as how to define data files, variables, and their attributes.
• Acclimating you regarding how SPSS works: Getting you familiar with the software is our number one focus and mission. We hope to get you to a point where you stop worrying about the software so you can concentrate on your analysis.
• Explaining how to tell SPSS to do basic tasks: This edition has a greatly expanded section in Parts 5 and 6 on understanding the basic theory, choosing the right technique, and interpreting results. We realize that if you're confused about SPSS, it may be because you're confused about statistics. However, we spend the rest of the book helping you understand the software.
• Starting you on your SPSS Statistics journey: You won't master statistics when you reach the end of this book, but you will be much more comfortable with SPSS software. No book of this length could cover all statistical techniques, but we selected the most important pr...