Descriptive Statistics

DR. DANNY M. TE
SPSS’ Name Evolution
• 1968: SPSS as Statistical Package for the Social Sciences
• 2000: SPSS as Statistical Products and Service Solutions
• 2009: PASW Statistics
• 2010: IBM-SPSS Statistics
IBM-SPSS Statistics for Windows is…
• A flexible database management software
• A powerful statistical analysis software
• A statistical and data management package
• To access,
• Prepare,
• Manage,
• Analyze, and
• Report on data from flat files (SPSS data files, surveys, Microsoft Excel etc)
and databases in order to solve business and research problems.
File Extension
• SPSS data = *.sav
• SPSS viewer (output) = *.spv
• SPSS syntax = *.sps
• SPSSS chart templates = *.sgt
• SPSS journal = *.jnl
Data Organization
• SPSS can read numeric, string (alphanumeric), date and other forms
of data.
• Coding schemes are arbitrary and numeric data can be labeled
(1=Male, 2=Female)
• String data are case sensitive. Thus, “SPSS” is not the same value as
“spss”.
• Anticipate all possible responses and assign code to them.
• Inclusion of an identification (ID) field in the data may be useful to
distinguish one respondent to another.
Entering Variable Names
• Maximum of 64 characters in length
• Must begin with a letter; remaining characters can be any letter, any
digit, a period, or most special characters
• Cannot contain special characters (!?’*) or blanks
• Cannot end with an underscore or period
• Can specify any combination of lower and/or upper case charcters
Level of Measurement of Data
• CATERGORICAL
• Nominal
• Numeric value represents category or group identifier (e.g. 1 for respondent
number 1
• Ordinal
• Has all the characteristics of the nominal level
• Data values represent ranking or ordering information (e.g. 1-very happy, 2-
happy, 3-not happy)
Level of Measurement of Data
• SCALE
• Interval
• Has the characteristics of the ordinal level
• The distances or differences between any two numbers have meaning
• No true zero-point
• Ratio
• Has all the characteristics of the interval level
• Has true zero-point
 Appropriate Measure of Central Tendency
Level of Mode Median Mean
Measurement

Nominal yes no no
Ordinal yes yes no
Scale yes yes yes
Descriptive Statistics
• Measures of Central Tendency
• Mean – the arithmetic average of a distribution
• Median – the middle value that separated the higher values and the lower
values equally
• Mode – the most frequently occurring value
• Measure of Dispersion
• Standard Deviation – a measure of dispersion around the mean
• Variance – the square of the standard deviation
• Minimum – lowest value
• Maximum – highest value
• Range – difference between the maximum and minimum
Descriptive Statistics
• Measure of Skewness – measures the symmetry of a distribution
• Symmetric – not skewed ( mean = median = mode)
• Skewed to the right; positively skewed; long right tail (mean > median >
mode)
• Skewed to the left; negatively skewed; long left tail (mean < median < mode)
• Simplified guidelines:
• If skewness ÷ standard error of skewness is greater than ± 2.58, then skewed
(skewed to the right if skewness is positive and skewed to the left if skewness
is negative)
• If skewness ÷ standard error of skewness is equal to or less than ± 2.58, then
symmetric
Descriptive Statistics
• Measure of Kurtosis – measures the extent to which observations
cluster around a central point.
• Mesokurtic – normal distribution
• Platykurtic – cluster less than a normal distribution; flatter peak around the
mean and thin tails (observations cluster less)
• Leptokurtic – cluster more than a normal distribution; higher peak around the
mean and fat tails (observations cluster more)
• Kurtosis guidelines:
• Kurtosis ÷ standard error of kurtosis is equal to ± 2.58, then Mesokurtic
• Kurtosis ÷ standard error of kurtosis is greater than ± 2.58:
• Platykurtic if Kurtosis is negative
• Leptokurtic if Kurtosis is positive
How to open files though SPSS or Excel
• Import Excel file from the SPSS environment
• File>Open>Data
• Open Data>Files of type> *.xlx
• Copy and paste Excel file to SPSS
• Copy the encoded data of the Excel file
• Paste to SPSS worksheet
How to process SPSS file
References
• Gavilan, Jona Gloriane. IBM-SPSS training to AdDU. April 1-8, 2014.
• Janssens et al. Marketing with SPSS. 2008. Pearson.