These pages describe how to use SPSS, a
commercial statistical software program, to manage data and perform data
analyses. Also see Category: Statistical computing. Other entries about SPSS software can be found in the
SPSS
software page at the
StATS website.
2010
- P.Mean: The SPSS t-test is confusing
(created 2010-06-29). I have always disliked how SPSS (now IBM SPSS) presented the output from
their independent samples t-test. I want to explain why it is confusing and
show you an alternative based on the general linear model.
- P.Mean: SPSS or Stata? (created
2010-01-19). I am an SPSS user. Some of my friends are choosing to leave SPSS and
learn STATA. What are the advantages of STATA over SPSS?
2009
- P.Mean: Entering and analyzing data from a
two by two table, using PASW/SPSS (created 2009-12-14). One of the most common questions I hear is how to enter and analyze data
from a two by two crosstabulation. It is not immediately obvious, especially
to beginners, how to get started with this type of data. The table shown below
presents some data and statistics from several two by two crosstabulations. How do you take information
like this and enter it into PASW/SPSS,
so that you can produce a useful analysis?
2008
- P.Mean: Viewing SPSS and SAS output
without buying SPSS and SAS (created 2008-12-17). For one of my consulting
clients, I asked for a copy of the output that the previous statistician had
used. I received two files, one with an SPV extension and another with an MHT
extension. It was obvious from the context that the first was an SPSS output
file and the second was a SAS output file. I have access to both SPSS and SAS
packages, but not conveniently at my laptop. I wanted to look at the files
quickly, so what could I do?
- P.Mean: Computing a difference
between the first and last variables (created 2008-10-20). Hello, I seen
that you have provided some answers to people's SPSS questions, and I was hoping
you could help me. I have a basic question that I imagine this can be done quite
easily through syntax, but I don't know how to do it. I have a data set with
multiple rows, where each row is data for an individual (pretty basic). I have
about 50 variables which are time points of data. I guess you could think of it
set up as individuals' scores on some measure at various time points where the
columns go, var1day1, var2day1, var3day1, var4day1, var2day1, var2day2,
var2day3, var2day4, var3day1, var3day2, var3day3, var3day4.......var1day50,
var2day50, var3day50, var4day50 What I need to do is quite simple, I'm creating
a variable which is simply the score of the first time point of var1 (var1day1)
minus the score of the last time point of that same variable (var1dayX).
However, it gets complicated because for some cases the last time point is the
variable day50, for some individuals the last time point is variable day3 and
there's everything in between. If all individuals had the same time points
(which ran up through day 50), I would simple say COMPUTE NEWVAR=VAR1DAY1-VAR1DAY50.
But that obviously won't work because not every case has a day50. I also can't
tell it to subtract the highest score, because it's not always true that an
individuals last score was their highest score.
- P.Mean: What's new in SPSS 17 (created
2008-10-07). I attended a webseminar on new developments in version 17 of
SPSS. SPSS has improved research and reporting tools, more accessibility for
non-statisticians and more accessibility for statistical programmers, and easier
integration, deployment, and management.
Other resources:
-
Verlen J. Product Naming Guide. Description: In a move that is quite
surprising to me, SPSS decided to rename all of its products. The basic SPSS
program is now called PASW Statistics. PASW is an acronym for Predictive
Analytics Software. This letter from the Vice President R&D and Chief Product
Strategist of SPSS Inc. explains why the names were changed and offers a guide
between old and new names of products of SPSS, Inc. [Accessed November 11,
2009]. Available at:
http://www.spss.com/software/product-name-guide/
-
Jon Peck. SPSS Inside-Out | Tips & Tricks for Statisticians to Work Better,
Smarter, and Faster. Excerpt: "Welcome to the SPSS Inside-Out blog -
Tips & Tricks for Statisticians to Work Better, Smarter, and Faster."
[Accessed February 5, 2010]. Available at:
http://insideout.spss.com/.
-
SPSS
Programming and Data Management, 3rd Edition. Raynald Levesque,
SPSS Inc., SPSS Inc. Accessed on 2006-Sept. 1. www.spss.com/spss/SPSS_programming_data_mgmt.pdf
- SPSS Textbooks: A Review for Teacher. Jamie D. Mills. Statistics
Education Research Journal 2003: 2(2); 59-70.
[PDF]
-
SPSS Tutorials.
F. Michael Speed. Accessed on 2003-02-12. stat.tamu.edu/~mspeed/spss/
- What's
new in SPSS 12.0. SPSS Inc. Accessed on 2003-11-11.
www.spss.com/spssbi/spss/whats_new.htm
-
SPSS Starter
Kit. UCLA Academic Technology Services. Accessed on 2004-01-19.
www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/spss/sk/
-
Interesting book: Crash Course in Spss for Windows: Updated for Versions 10, 11, 12 And 13. Andrew M.
Colman, Briony Pulford. ISBN: 1405145315 Publisher: Blackwell Publishers - 2006-04-05.
[BookFinder4U link]
People always ask me for book recommendations, and I am frequently at a loss
for what to say. Recommending a book is actually quite difficult, though, because people's needs vary so
much. A common request is for a book about SPSS, and the book mentioned
above looks pretty good, though
I have not read it yet. The description of this book was written by Steve Simon on 2006-03-16,
edited by Steve Simon, and was last modified on
2010-06-29.
- Interesting book: SPSS 12.0 Guide to Data Analysis. Marija
Norusis. I have not read this book, but it comes highly recommended in the
Fall 2004 newsletter of the
Teaching of Statistics in the Health Sciences Section of the
American Statistical Association. The review was written by Daniel W.
Byrne. Here's the opening paragraph of the review. Those who teach
statistics in the health sciences are often asked to recommend “a good
introductory statistics book”. This request is frequently made by
physician/colleagues attempting to learn both data analysis and statistical
software. Since it is unlikely that these busy professionals will have time
and motivation to read both a statistics textbook and a statistical software
manual, there is need for a book that combines the two. In my opinion,
Marija Norusis’ book “SPSS® 12.0 Guide to Data Analysis” fills this niche
better than any of the competing books. For the past 15 years, I have been
recommending this book and have received positive feedback from my
colleagues and students.
All of the material above this paragraph is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License. This page was written by
Steve Simon and was last modified on
2010-06-29. The material
below this paragraph links to my
old website, StATS. Although I wrote all of the material
listed below, my ex-employer, Children's Mercy Hospital, has claimed copyright
ownership of this material. The brief excerpts shown here are included under
the fair use provisions of U.S. Copyright laws.
2006
- Stats: Changing page breaks in
SPSS (August 31, 2006). SPSS often chooses some unusual and unfortunate places to make a page
break. You can fix this, according to a helpful soul on the SPSSX-L listserv
(MG). Just tell SPSS never to use page breaks (in other words, print a single
page and let your printer make the page breaks) by entering the command set
length=none in the command syntax window.
- Stats: Extending SPSS
capabilities using Python (January 19, 2006). Version 14 of SPSS allows you to incorporate external programming languages
into SPSS syntax. This sort of thing is not for the faint of heart. SPSS has
built an interface between their command syntax, and a program called Python,
and with a bit of effort, you could build a similar interface to other
programs.
2005
- Stats: What's New in SPSS version
14.0 (August 17, 2005). I attended a web seminar, What's New in SPSS version 14.0, taught by Meta
Brown, a Senior Systems Engineer with SPSS, Inc. Version 14 will ship in
October 2005. The major improvements in version 14.0 include more powerful
data management (multiple data sets open in a single SPSS session) and
enhanced reporting (a new chart builder interface, and a graphics production
language, GPL). in the SPSS base product, and easy data validation (validate
across multiple variables), easier more powerful forecasting (an expert
modeler offers sophisticated fitting of time series models that can now
incorporate independent variables and forecast many series at once), extended
programmability (more complex functions like flow control and extensibility),
and expanded structural equation modeling options (bayesian estimation and
data imputation). in the SPSS product family.
- Stats: Placing consecutive
dates in a column of an SPSS file (January 26, 2005). Someone gave me a data set with 549 rows of data. The first row
corresponded to observations on 06/01/2003, the second to 06/02/2003, and so
forth through 11/30/2004. She wanted to know how to get those particular
dates in a column without having to type something into each individual cell.
Here's how I did it.
2004
- Stats: New in SPSS version 13.0
(December 7, 2004). I attended a web seminar on the new enhancements in version 13.0 of SPSS software. The
most notable change is in date calculations.
- Stats: Advanced SPSS methods (May 12,
2004). SPSS had a nice web seminar on their Regression and Advanced Statistics modules. Here are
some notes that I took while sitting in.
2002
- Stats: SPSS citation (March 6, 2002).
Dear Professor Mean: I'm writing a research paper. When I talk about the
statistical methods, how do I properly cite the use of SPSS software? And
just what does SPSS stand for anyway? --Zealous Zohreh.
1999
- Stats: Modifying SPSS data (August 18, 1999)
Dear Professor Mean, Before I start my data analysis, I need to modify
some of the data in my SPSS data set. I don't want to re-type every number by
hand. Is there a faster way to do this? -- Impatient Pam
Unknown dates (approximately around 1998-2000)
- Stats: Importing database files into SPSS. Dear Professor Mean, How do I import database files into SPSS? I don't
want to re-type everything, because there are 70,000 records. The data are
stored in a Microsoft Access file. -- Vexed Vidya
- Stats: Date calculations in SPSS. Dear Professor Mean, I am trying to use dates in SPSS for certain
calculations. For example, I want to use a compute statement in SPSS to create
a new variable called duration of injury (durinj). I know that I must subtract
the date of injury from the date of interview. However, when I do this, I get a
number in the millions. What am I doing wrong? -- Stumped Sharon
- Stats: Importing spreadsheet data into SPSS. Dear Professor Mean, I need to import
data in an Excel spreadsheet, but I can't get SPSS to read this data properly.
Can you help? -- Stumped Stan
- Stats: Exporting SPSS graphs and tables. Dear Professor Mean, I need to export the output from SPSS and use some
of it in my word processing file. What is the best way to do this? -- Manic
Marsha
- Stats: MDAC and other ways to install ODBC
drivers
- Stats: Merging files in SPSS. Dear Professor Mean, I get a strange error message when I try to merge
two files in SPSS. What is going on? -- Computing Cheryl
- Stats: Inputting a two-by-two table into SPSS.
Dear Professor Mean, I have the data in a two by two table. When I try to
enter this data into SPSS, I can't get it to compute risk ratios and
confidence intervals. What am I doing wrong? -- Jinxed Jason
What now?
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