Posts filed under 'Questions and answers'
In a lot of research, multiple answers can be given to a single question. For example:
“What kind of food do you like?”
o soup
o rice
o salad
How do you analyse this type of question? Let’s assume you want to make a table with the answers. How do you combine them? Even though it may seem like the most easy thing to do, this is pretty difficult stuff. SPSS is good at analyzing unique combinations of variables (answers to questions) combined with unique cases (people in a survey). The combination of more than one answer per person, does not fit into that logic. So we have to be a little creative.
This is a preview of How to handle multiple response questions
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May 2nd, 2006
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We write this post assuming that you have already defined your variables, and that you have not already entered data in another program. If you have, please refer to the post about importing data into SPSS.
Open your SPSS file, and make sure that the tab selected in the bottom is the “Data View” tab. In this view, the rows represent the observations (or respondents, cases) and the columns represent your variables.
May 1st, 2006
andris
Start SPSS, and create a new data file (Choose Type in data in the first dialog window). You now see a file that looks like a Microsoft Excel file. In the bottom of your screen, you see two tabs. We see that the tab “Data View” is selected. This is the place to type in your data. Before we take that step, we have to define our variables. Next to the tab “Data View” we see the tab “Variable View“, click on that tab. When you have clicked this tab, you get the following screen:
(click on thumbnail to get the big version)
April 29th, 2006
andris
Today Giuseppe from Italy sent us the following question:
“How can i translate spss into the italian language?”
SPSS is available in several different languages, namely English, Japanese, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Chinese, Polish, Korean, and Russian. The website of SPSS says you should “contact your local office to find out version information and more”. Visit the SPSS website to find a list of local offices. And Guiseppe, especially for you, the SPSS website in Italian. 
If you have any more questions about SPSS, please submit your question!
Permanent link to this post (89 words, estimated 21 secs reading time)
April 29th, 2006
andris
Many visitors of our blog are searching for information about the one sample t-test.
You perform a one-sample t-test when you want to determine if the mean value of a target variable is different from a hypothesized value.
To perform a one-sample t-test in SPSS. Choose Analyze>Compare Means>One-sample t-test.
Move the variable of interest to the Test variable(s) box. Change the test value to the hypothesized value. Click the OK button.
The output from this analysis will contain the following sections.
One-Sample Statistics. Provides the sample size, mean, standard deviation, and standard error of the mean for the target variable.
April 26th, 2006
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Ivy sent us an e-mail about investigating the interaction effect of independent variables. MANOVA (multivariate analysis of variance) is a statistical procedure that allows you to determine if a set of categorical predictor variables can explain the variability in a set of continuous response variables.
In SPSS you can perform a MANOVA as follows:
- Choose Analyze -> General Linear Model -> Multivariate.
- Move the DVs (dependent variables) you want to examine to the Dependent Variables box.
- Move any categorical IVs (independent variables) to the Fixed Factor(s) box.
- Move any continuous IVs to the Covariate(s) box.
- Click OK and there you have your output.
April 25th, 2006
andris
This Friday we got a question from Els, who has a problem with making her stacked bar graphs look good:
“As a trainee I am now analysing the results of a customer satisfactory investigation. Many people advised me to use SPSS, so I did.
Most of the questionnaire questions are built the same way (very dissatisfied, dissatisfied, satisfied, very satisfied).
The report will be devised in subjects (price, quality, reaction speed,etc). Each subject contains around 5 questions.
For each subject I made a horizontal graph in which all 5 questions regarding that subject are being displayed. This way I will analyze around 5 questions in each graph, as in this example.
April 22nd, 2006
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This weekend we got a question from Kat, who is desperately 
looking for our help. She is working on a project with a lot of data in Excel:
“I am in the middle of a project for which I have constructed a large table in Microsoft Excel.
The table consists of variables going across the top, and cases down the side. The cells contain numbers (ie. the frequency of each variable within each case). Many of the cells have no number or the variable has zero frequency in that case.
April 19th, 2006
andris
Zakya asked us another question. After getting his Excel data into SPSS, he wanted to find possible correlations between a couple of variables. Zakya, please find below an explanation on finding correlations using the Pearson correlation analysis.
The Pearson correlation analysis test can be used to find correlations between responses of nominal variables.
This is a preview of Finding correlations using the Pearson correlation analysis.
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April 11th, 2006
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This weekend we got a question from Zakya, who desperately needs information on how to import Excel data into SPSS.
Actually, importing from SPSS is not that hard at all. But before you import, there are some steps to take to make importing more easy:
- Close the Excel file (otherwise SPSS will give an error message)
- Make a header row in Excel with column names (keep them brief and descriptive)
- Do not mix up numbers and text in the same column
April 10th, 2006
andris
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