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SPSS Statistical Software

This guide covers the basics of SPSS, including how to conduct simple statistical analyses and data visualization. (The Guide is currently a work in progress, so some content is not in here yet).

SPSS Graphs, Charts, and Visuals

SPSS has various options for creating visuals of your data. Most of these options are under Graph on the top menubar. Let's walk through how to create various graphs and visuals of your data!

Bar Graph

Bar graphs are great for visualizing simple counts of your data, for example, the number of individuals who fall under specific categories, or how many individuals selected a certain response option. The steps below show you how to create a bar graph. The other tabs in this section show you how to edit the appearance of the graph; click through the other tabs after you create a bar graph.


Let's walk through how to create a bar graph!

  1. Click on Graphs on the top menubar. Select Bar... from the dropdown menu.
     
  2. From the popup window, select Simple (it should already be selected by default, denoted by a thick black border), and for Data in Chart Are, select Summaries for groups of cases (it should already be selected by default). Then click Define.
     
  3. In the next popup window, move a categorical/nominal variable into the Category Axis box (for this example, let's use Ethnicity). We will leave Bar Represent as N of cases because we want the graph to display a count of how many individuals fall under each category of the variable we selected. (Another option you could use is % of Cases, which will display bars representing the percent of how many individuals in your sample fall under each category of the variable you select). 
     
  4. This is all you need to do to make a simple bar graph, so you could click OK now to create the graph, but we will do one more (optional) thing before clicking OK. Click the Titles button on the top right. This brings up a popup window for you to type out a title for your graph. For our example, type Participant Ethnicities in the top box (Title Line 1). (You can also add a subtitle or footnote from this window too if you want to). Click Continue. Then on the previous popup window, click OK.
     
  5. Now SPSS will create our bar graph. You should see something like this appear in your Output window:
     
  6. You can edit the appearance of the graph by double-clicking on the graph to "activate" it. 
     
  7. After double-clicking on the graph, a new popup window will appear where you can edit the appearance of the graph. It will look like this:
      

Now that you've created a bar graph and opened up the graph editor window, click through the other tabs at the top of this section to see what you can do in the graph editor window.

You can edit the appearance of the graph by double-clicking on the graph (in the Output window) to "activate" it. 
 

After double-clicking on the graph, a new popup window will appear where you can edit the appearance of the graph. It will look like this:

Click through the other tabs at the top of this section to see what you can do in the graph editor window.

Let's go over some of the useful features in this graph-editing window.

First let's increase the font size of our Y-axis scale.

  1. Click on any of the numbers on the Y-axis -- this will select the entire Y-axis scale (you can see the entire scale is selected by the boxes that appear around each number).
  2. Now click on the icon in the toolbar for increasing font size - it looks like a capital letter A with an up-arrow next to it. Click on the Increase Font Size button until the font is size 12 (or larger, if you prefer). If you look at the 2nd image below, you'll see the increased font size of the Y-axis scale. (I recommend using at least size 12 for all graph elements on any graphs you plan to copy/paste into a research paper you are writing).
     
     
  3. You can increase the font size of the X-axis values the same way: clicking on one of the X-axis values to select the entire X-axis scale, and then clicking on the Increase Font Size button until you reach the desired font size. 
    increasing the font size of the X-axis 
  4. You can increase the font size of anything on the graph by using this same method - clicking on the graph element (e.g., graph titles/labels, footnotes, X-axis and Y-axis labels, X-axis and Y-axis scales, other numbers/labels) you want to increase and then clicking on the Increase Font Size button. (There's also a Decrease Font Size button right next to it that you can click to decrease the font size of whatever you have selected).
    (This image below shows an increased size of the graph title by clicking on the graph title to select it, and then clicking on the Increase Font Size button).
       
  5. One last thing is that there are also buttons in the toolbar for Bolding and Italicizing any graph elements (denoted by a capital B and a capital I). Use them as necessary for your own graphs/charts.

Now let's go over how to change the color of your graph elements. Let's start with the bars of the graph.

  1. Click on one of the bars to select all of the bars. Now locate the icon in the toolbar that looks like a colored rectangle (it should be blue by default to match the current color of the bars). Click on the little dropdown arrow next to it and this will open up a palette of colors where you can select a new color for the bars.
     
  2. You can also use this same method to change the color of any other graph elements too, like the graph title. However, for text elements, instead of the colored rectangle icon, you will use the icon/button to the left of it (with a tall capital A on it) to change text color. (That capital A will appear as the color of the text of whatever element you have selected, so by default it will look black, and then change colors based on whichever color you select). (see image below).
     
  3. One other thing to note is that you can change the color of individual bars. Recall how when you click on one bar, it selects all of the bars. If you click that same bar again, it will select just that one bar. Now you can change the color of that individual bar (as shown below). (See the other image below for an example of how it could look if you change each individual bar's color).
      

Now let's go over how to change the text of any titles in your graph.

Adjusting Titles

Let's change the text of the Y-axis title.

  1. Click on the Y-axis title ("Count"), wait one second, then click on it again to activate the text editor (you don't want to double-click as that will not activate the text editor; it will bring up a popup window to adjust settings of the entire y-axis, which we'll go over later). As shown below, it will now display the title in horizontal format while you are editing the text. Let's erase "Count" and type in "Number of Participants." After you finish typing that out, click anywhere outside of that text editing box. You should now see your updated Y-axis title. (Follow these same steps to edit any titles/labels on the graph).
     
     

Adding a Title

If you did not add a title to your graph when you created it, you can add a title from the graph editor window. You can also add footnotes if your graph needs them.

  1. To add a Title, click on the Insert a Title button in the toolbar. (The icon looks like a mini graph with a thick line across the top). Now a title will appear, and you can edit the title text. (If a little popup window appears, you can close out of it. It has more advanced settings, but for most purposes, you will not need to adjust those settings).
     
  2. To edit the title, click on it, wait a second, then click on it again to allow you to edit the text. Type in whatever title you would like.
  3.  

Adding a Footnote

  1. To add a Footnote, click on the Insert a Footnote button in the toolbar. (The icon looks like a mini graph with a thick line across the bottom). Now a footnote will appear, and you can edit the footnote text. (If a little popup window appears, you can close out of it. It has more advanced settings, but for most purposes, you will not need to adjust those settings).
     
  2. To edit the footnote, click on it, wait a second, then click on it again to allow you to edit the text. Type in whatever title you would like.

 

If you would like to change the orientation of the graph to horizontal instead of vertical, click the icon on the toolbar that looks like a horizontal bar graph (the Transpose Chart Coordinate System button). Click that same button to change the orientation back to vertical. 
 

Now let's add Data Labels to our bars. Data labels show the actual number that each bar represents (in our case, data labels will show how many individuals in our sample fall under each ethnicity category).

  1. To add Data Labels, click the icon on the toolbar that looks like a mini bar graph with little white rectangles on the bars (the Show Data Labels button). Now you will see numbers inside white boxes appear on each bar, representing how many individuals fall within each category of our variable. (You can increase the font size of these data labels by selecting them and then clicking the Increase Font Size button. I recommend at least font size 12).
     
  2. If a little popup window happened to appear when you clicked the Data Labels button, just close out of it. You don't need to adjust anything in that popup. The popup window shows more detailed settings for the data labels, but for most purposes, you won't need to adjust anything on there.

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