The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) has a very informative feature that is called the SPSS Tutorial. The SPSS Tutorial is available in the SPSS’s help menu. This SPSS Tutorial details the workability of SPSS in a detailed, step-wise manner. The SPSS Tutorial also includes some case studies that enlighten the new user about the statistical tools used in SPSS software. The SPSS Tutorial can be regarded as a Statistical analysis guide.
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The SPSS Tutorial consists of the following topics:
Introduction
This topic in the SPSS Tutorial generally explains the utilization of the sample files. This topic in the SPSS Tutorial explains that the sample files are the files that contain survey data that is purely imaginary. In this topic of the SPSS Tutorial, one generally gets familiar with SPSS. In other words, the SPSS Tutorial teaches the user how to open a data file, conduct the analysis, and observe the output of the analysis.
Reading Data
This topic in the SPSS Tutorial informs the user about how to read the data that is imported to the SPSS data files through sources like MS Excel, MS Access, etc. It gives a step-by-step account of how to do this.
Using the data editor
This topic in the SPSS Tutorial informs the user about the method of entering a string type of variable or a numeric type of variable in an SPSS data file. This is done with the help of the variable and the “data view” option available in SPSS. This topic of the SPSS Tutorial also informs the user about handling the missing data in an efficient manner. This topic in the SPSS Tutorial also tells the user about adding variable labels, value labels for numeric variables and string variables, or using value labels for data entry. This topic in the SPSS Tutorial also discusses the defining variable properties for categorical variables in a graphical manner.
Working with multiple data sources
This topic of the SPSS Tutorial gives knowledge to the user about how to switch back and forth between the data sources. This topic of the SPSS Tutorial also informs the user on how to make comparisons about the contents of different data sources, copy and paste between data sources, and create multiple subsets of cases and / or variables for analysis. This topic of the SPSS Tutorial also tutors the user about how to merge multiple data sources from various data formats without saving each data source. In general, one can say that this topic of the SPSS Tutorial deals with the basic handling of multiple data sources (including copying and pasting information between datasets).
Examining Summary Statistics for Individual variables
In this part of the SPSS tutorial, it tells the user about how the level of the measurement of a variable affects the type of statistics. This topic in the SPSS tutorial mainly emphasizes the summary measures for the categorical types of variables and the scale variables.
Cross tabulation tables
This topic in the SPSS Tutorial provides the user with certain case studies from the sample files about different types of cross tabulation, like simple cross tabulation, count vs. percentages, significance testing for cross tabulations, etc.
Creating and Editing charts
This topic in the SPSS tutorial mainly talks about how to create a chart using the chart builder gallery, and it also tells us about editing the charts. This topic in the SPSS tutorial makes the user understand its usability with the help of examples based on Pie Chart, Grouped Scatter Plot, Bar chart, etc.
