SPSS For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

Chapter 3. A Simple Statistical Analysis Example

In This Chapter

• Entering data into SPSS

• Performing an analysis

• Drawing a graph

The purpose of this chapter is to introduce you to the mechanics of working with SPSS. It begins with stepping through the process of entering some simple data into SPSS and continues with processing that data. This is followed by various procedures for deriving results, using a subset of the data for some calculations and then some other parts of the data for other calculations. Finally, the results from these different calculations are displayed in different ways.

The data for this example is simple, as are the displays that the data generates. The purpose of this chapter is not to present any great breakthrough in statistical analysis. Instead, I simply want to demonstrate the basic procedures you need to know about when you're using SPSS.

When the Tanana at Nenana Thaws

This analysis is about an annual lottery that takes place in Alaska. Actually, it isn't called a lottery — it's called a classic, whatever that means.

I don't know whether the Tanana Classic is the oldest lottery in the United States (it began in 1917), but it's certainly the slowest. It has only one jackpot per year, and tickets for that jackpot are sold all across the state during the winter months.

The lottery is simple enough: The citizens of the town of Nenana set up a large tripod on the ice in the middle of the Tanana River. From the top of the tripod, a tight line is stretched to a clock ...