What is SPSS?

• SPSS program commands follow very specific syntax rules, which are described in various SPSS publications. They are briefly outlined below.
  • All commands must begin in the first column of a line and be spelled correctly. (Note: there are a few differences in terminology and syntax between the mainframe and microcomputer versions of SPSS.)
  • Most commands include additional information (e.g., names of variables the command is to be applied to, options for processing data, displaying results, etc.)
    • which may be continued on the same line using the appropriate delimiter (e.g., blank space, comma, slash)
    • or continued on an additional line(s) provided that the continuation begins after column 1.
  • Commands can be typed in either upper or lower case.
  • Most SPSS commands have default specifications, i.e., the options that will be used unless you tell SPSS to use something else.
•  SPSS commands fall into one of the following types:

data definition

These commands (1) bring raw data into SPSS, either from another file, or by typing it in yourself, and (2) enter descriptive information about the data.

DATA LIST.

BEGIN DATA

END DATA

VARIABLE LABELS

VALUE LABELS

MISSING VALUES

file interfaces

These commands access and save SPSS system files

GET FILE

SAVE OUTFILE

EXPORT FILE

IMPORT FILE

analyze data

These commands actually do statistical analysis

FREQUENCIES

T-TEST

ONEWAY

MEANS

PLOT

REGRESSION

Examples of regression analysis

CROSSTABS

modify data

These commands alter data and change file characteristics.

COMPUTE

Dealing with a highly skewed variable

RECODE

An expanded example of compute and recode

IF

Using COMPUTE and IF to create "dummy" variables (coded 0 or 1).

SELECT IF commands extract sets of cases for analysis

*SPSSTM (originally, Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) is a software program developed in the late 1960s by graduate students at Stanford University. Although initially created to manage a large survey research project of citizen participation in seven nations, the package quickly gained popularity, and was greatly enhanced over the next few years. In 1985, a microcomputer version of SPSS for IIBM-compatible personal computers was introduced, which included many of the most popular features of the mainframe version of SPSS. Today there are more than one million users of SPSS in academic, business, government, and non-profit organizations.

SPSS is a full-featured data analysis program that offers a variety of applications including data base management and reporting, statistical analysis, and graphics. The SPSS program runs on a wide variety of mainframe, mini, and microcomputers. The most recent version is SPSS 10.0, which runs on both Windows and Macintosh computers. SPSS's own website for technical help is http://www.spss.com/tech/

In our PoliSci 310 Statistics class, we will use version 6.0 for unix operating systems. We will run SPSS using its command language.

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The explanatory material on SPSS was drawn partly from StatMaster,* and from the "help" commands in the Data Manager version of SPSS 6.0 for unix.

*StatMaster is a hypertext program for learning SPSS developed at Brown University by Michael Rich, Jack Combs, and Kaenan Hertz. Written using the Guide authoring system, StatMaster won the American Political Science Association's Instructional Software Award in 1991.