Contents:

1. Starting an SPSS session 2. Looking at your variables one at a time 3. Exploring relationships between pairs of variables

4. Printing output 5. Moving output to another program 6. Quitting SPSS

Finding SPSS will depend on where it was installed on the computer you are using. I will go through the steps at the CSUB computer labs. These steps will be pretty similar at most installations. If you cannot find SPSS, you may have to ask which in computers it is installed on your campus.

Starting SPSS on PCs with WINDOWS 95/98 [This is the suggested start up -- you can also double click the SPSS data file]
• Click the mouse on the Start button at the bottom left of the screen
• Drag the mouse up to Programs
• Drag the mouse across to SPSS
• Click 2 times on the SPSS 9.0 for Windows (other versions of SPSS may vary slightly from this tutorial), and SPSS will open to the following dialog box, Figure 1.

Figure 1

• Click beside Open an existing file
• Click OK
• Be patient! It will take a few minutes but SPSS will open to an Open file dialog box

Figure 2

• Click the down arrow beside the Files of type box and choose All files [*.*]
• Find your SPSS data file in the Open file dialog box (you probably saved it to a floppy) and click the Open button

We can now look at our chosen variables from the CSUSsp.por file. SPSS offers a variety of ways to do this including: Frequencies (with percentages), Descriptives (summary statistics), and Explore (summary statistics and displays). For this tutorial we will use Frequencies:

• Drag the Analyze menu to Descriptive Statistics
• Continue your drag across to Frequencies which will appear in a sub menu box, and release the mouse button. A Frequencies dialog box will appear (see Figure 4).

Figure 4

• One at a time find and click the variables on the left you want to examine, then click the arrow between the boxes to include your variables in the Variable(s) list box, the box on the right. For our example click on V10, our dependent variable (you may have to scroll to find the variable), then click the arrow in the middlle of the dialog box to move V10 to the Variable(s) list box. Do the same for V2, our independent variable.

• We could click the Statistics and Charts button and make choices, but for our example we will just click OK at the top right of the dialog box.

• Frequency distributions are calculated and displayed in an untitled output window, Figure 5.

• You can scroll through the output and look at the distribution of our other variable GENDER, Figure 6.

Figure 6
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• Drag the Analyze menu again to Descriptive Statistics.

• Continue your drag to Crosstabs.. which will appear in a sub menu box, Figure 7.

• Release the mouse button and a dialog box will appear, Figure 8.

Figure 7

• We are going to see if there is a difference between males and females. The research question we are asking is Are males or females more likely to receive financial support from relatives or friends. Choose the row variable which is usually the dependent variable (for our example V10-- Financial Support), then the column variable which usually is the independent variable. In this case the column variable is gender, V2 (see Figure 8).

Figure 8

• At the bottom of the dialogue box, click the Statistics button then choose the appropriate statistics followed with a click of the Continue button. In this case I choose only Chi-square to test significance, Figure 9.

• Again at the bottom of the Crosstabs dialogue, Figure 8 box, click Cells and make choices for what you want in the cells of your tables. I chose Observed frequencies (the default) and Percentages by Column (Appropriate where the column variable is independent and the row variable is dependent). Then click Continue on the Cell Display dialog box (see Figure 10). You will now return to the Crosstabs dialogue box.

• Click Continue on the Crosstabs dialog box and your table and statistics will be calculated and displayed in the output window (see Figure 11). I have just shown the table to illustrate the output but if you are following along with this on a computer you can use the scroll bar to see the statistics output.

• Perform Analyze to produce the output you want on the screen in the untitled output window
• Choose Print from the File menu (Figure 12) and a print dialog box will appear (see Figure 13).

• Print dialog boxes vary with the type of printer, but all have the following choices in common:

Copies: type in number desired
Pages: All, or specify range (From, To).
Print: just click after choosing above.

Some printers also have the following:
Quality: choose Best or Normal

(a) Copy the output to the clipboard by:

• Clicking on one table, statistics or chart object that you want to put in your report
• The "object" will be selected with a box appearing around the output you will be moving, Figure 14 .
• Choose Copy Object from the Edit menu

(b) Open the application or document into which you will place the SPSS output. We will paste the output into Microsoft Word.

Word 97

Open your word document or a new blank document, place your cursor where you want the output to appear.

Choose "Paste Special" from the edit menu

In the "Paste Picture" dialog box that appears click "picture" then click the OK button. Your SPSS output will be pasted as a picture object.

Change the size of your "picture" by dragging from a corner

Word 2000
• Open your word document or a new blank document, place your cursor where you want the output to appear.
• Choose "Paste" from the edit menu
• Change the size of your "picture" by dragging from a corner. Figure 15

Figure 15
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If you have been working along with these steps, now is a good time to take a break. To quit SPSS, choose Quit from the File menu. Sometimes this will result in a dialog box asking if you want to save the file. Follow the steps and name and save the file at this point if you want to save it to your disk. You don't really need to do this if you have easy access to the data file. Also save and print your document file and/or quit your word processor.

If you have been following the exercise steps, this completes the SPSS portion of the exercise. You now need to look at your output, decide its meaning and write up your report.

SPSS is pretty easy to use. Try some of the other available procedures, experiment, you can't really hurt anything!

Footnotes