Introduction to SPSS Exercise - Essay Example

Exercise SPSS, developed by IBM and officially known as IBM SPSS Software, is statistical software used for predictive analysis. This exercise was carried out to get familiarized with the use of SPSS in data generation and statistical analysis.

The data generated using SPSS is attached as appendix ‘A’ to this report. SPSS was used to carry out the descriptive analysis of the data generated for two variables each having a sample size of 30 i.e., N=30 as shown below in table 1. According to Kirk, the mode is the highest score value in the data sample that has the maximum frequency of occurrence, the median is the center value in the order data sample that divides the sample into two halves while the mean is the average of all data points and is the center of gravity of the sample (73).

Kirk highlights that the standard deviation is the most important and widely used value that helps to identify the dispersion of the data (85). The square of standard deviation is called variance. Skewness is the measure of the extent to which the distribution of the data leans to one side of the mean. Negatively skewed data indicates that the distribution leans to the right while positively skewed data indicates the distribution leaning to the left of the average value. Kurtosis, on the other hand, is the measure of the peakedness of the sample data.

Statistics Variable1 N Valid 30 Missing 0 Mean -.0412 Median .0115 Mode 0.41 Std. Deviation .97176 Variance .944 Skewness .028 Kurtosis .600 Table 1: Descriptive Statistics of Variable 1 The descriptive data above for Variable1 indicates that the mean value of the sample is -0.0412 with the median at 0.0115 and mode is 0.41. The standard deviation of our sample variable 1 is 0.97176 with a variance of 0.944 which indicates that 97% of the data falls within the first sigma from the mean. Our data is slightly left-skewed since the mean is less than the median and the median is less than the mode.

The same is indicated by the value of skewness being 0.028 and the histogram below in Figure 1. The histogram shows the graphical distribution of the data. It represents the frequencies of the data sample with frequencies on the y-axis while data values are divided in classes on the x-axis. Figure 1: Histogram of Variable 1 The descriptive statistics of data for the second variable VAR00002 shows a mean value of -0.2285 with the median at -0.4288 and mode being -0.48. The standard deviation of the sample size is 1.14253 with a variance of 1.305. The distribution of data in our Variable 2 is right-skewed since the mean is greater than the median and the median is greater than the mode as confirmed through the value of skewness being -0.

061 and histogram in Figure 2. Statistics Variable2 N Valid 30 Missing 0 Mean -.02285 Median -0.4288 Mode -0.48 Std. Deviation 1.14253 Variance 1.305 Skewness -.061 Kurtosis -.972 Table 2: Descriptive Statistics of Variable 2 Figure 2: Histogram of Variable 2 According to Utts and Heckard, “a scatter plot is a two-dimensional graph of the data values in two samples representing a correlation between the two variables” (132). A scatter plot was constructed between the two variables generated using SPSS Software as shown in the figure below.

Here, Variable1 is placed on the x-axis while Variable2 is placed on the y-axis. Further, correlation analysis of the data was conducted using Pearson’s Coefficient of Correlation (0.272). A value of 0.272 for Pearson’s Coefficient of Correlation indicates a low correlation between the two variables.