Introduction to SPSS for statistical analysis

Workshop description

SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) is a software program used by researchers in various disciplines for quantitative analysis of complex data. This introductory level SPSS workshop introduces SPSS environment, basic data preparation and management, descriptive statistics, and common statistical analysis (T-test, ANOVA, correlation, regression). Hands-on-activity with example data is provided to learn these basics. This workshop is a good start for people who are new to SPSS and help you harness this useful analysis tool. Join us for this workshop and start your data analysis with SPSS!

Workshop materials

• Workshop slides
• Example Excel data for workshop
• Example of SPSS data for workshop

Additional resources

SPSS for beginners

• SPSS Statistics Essential Training – Tutorial via Lynda.com. This is a subscription site: you should have access via your local public library, e.g. Vancouver Public Library, if you have a library card. 
• SPSS On-Line Training Workshop – Central Michigan U.  A long list of frequent functionalities of SPSS for beginners.  
• Statistics How To -This list gives you the basic tools to get you started with SPSS in a step-by-step format. 

How to Create Statistical Analysis

• Learning and Teaching with ICPSR – The ICPSR (Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research) provides rich data resources in order to advance and expand social and behavioural research. 
• Data Analysis Examples with IDRE – The IDRE (Institute for Digital Research & Education) provide hypothetical data in order to illustrate different statistical analysis techniques using different software packages.

Running Statistical Tests

• What Statistical Analysis Should I Use? – A clear list compiling many of the statistical analysis tests, categorized by type of the independent variable(s) and dependent variable(s). 

Interpreting SPSS Outputs

• A Student’s Guide to Interpreting SPSS Output for Basic Analysis – A clear, visualized guide by ICPSR that shows you how to interpret your SPSS output.

SPSS video tutorials – YouTube

1. ​Creating a Categorical Variable
2. Selecting Variables
3. Split Files
4. Compute Variables
5. Recode
6. Describe a Continuous (Scale) Variable
7. Frequency
8. Cross Tabulation
9. Student T-Test
10. Anova Test
11. Correlation
12. Parametric and Non-Parametric Student T-Test
13. Parametric and Non-Parametric Anova Test

Getting started series: opening a dataset and data management

• SPSS guide 1: opening data
• SPSS guide 2: select cases
• SPSS guide 3: split a file
• SPSS guide 4: using weight
• SPSS guide 5: compute and recode

Recommended reading

• SPSS Explained (2014) by Perry Hinton; Charlotte Brownlow; Isabella McMurray
• Social Research Methods (2012) by Alan Bryman
• SPSS for Starters (2010) by Ton J. Cleophas; Aeilko H. Zwinderman
• Interpreting Quantitative Data with IBM SPSS Statistics (2012) by Rachad Antonius

SOS (Statistical Opportunity for Students)

Questions about statistical analysis methodology? Please visit Statistical Opportunity for Students for information on how to sign up for a free one-hour consultation with a statisics consultant from the Applied Statistics and Data Science Group in the Department of Statistics.