Introduction to the

SPSS Interface

Dr. Rogis Baker

rogis@upnm.edu.my

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Contents

• SPSS interface:
– Data view and Variable view
• How to enter data in SPSS
• How to import external data into SPSS
• How to clean and edit data
• How to get descriptive statistics

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SPSS interface

• Data view
– The place to enter data
– Columns: variables
– Rows: records
• Variable view
– The place to enter variables
– List of all variables
– Characteristics of all variables

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Enter data in SPSS directly

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Example: Hospital-stay data

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 Columns:
variables

Rows:
cases

Under Data
View

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 Enter Variables

1. Click Variable View

2. Type variable name
under Name column
2. Type 4. (AGE).
variable Description
name of variable
NOTE: Variable name can
3. Type: be 64 bytes long, and
numeric or the first character
string must be a letter or
one of the characters
@, #, or $.
1. Click this 3. Type: Numeric, string,
Window etc.
4. Label: description of
variables.

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 Enter variables

Based on
your code
book!

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Enter cases

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 Import data from Excel
• Select File Open Data
• Choose Excel as file type
• Select the file you want to import
• Then click Open

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Open Excel files in SPSS

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Continue

Save
this file
as SPSS
data

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 Clean data after import data files

• Run cases summaries for all variables

• Run frequency for qualitative variables
and Descriptives for quantitative variables
• Check outputs to see if you have variables
with wrong values.
• Check missing values and physical surveys
if you use paper surveys, and make sure
they are real missing.
• Sometimes, you need to recode string
variables into numeric variables
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cases summaries

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 Basic Statistical Analysis

• Descriptive statistics:
1. Find wrong entries
2. Have basic knowledge about the
sample and targeted variables in a
study
3. Summarize data.

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 Qualitative Variables

Analyze Descriptive statistics Frequency

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 Quantitative Variables
Analyze Descriptive statistics Descriptives

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 AGE
Histogram Box-Plot

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 Duration of Stay
Histogram Box-Plot

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