COMM 301L: Empirical Research in CommunicationIntroduction to SPSSThis is an introduction to the main statistical software program you will be using: SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences). The main aim of this lesson is to acquaint you with some basic procedures which will let you begin to use the program. Later in the course, you will use the program more.To start, you have a bunch of data, specifically a small set of survey questionnaires. Before you can analyze any data in SPSS, you need to set up your data properly. This includes identifying each respondent’s questionnaire, defining your variables properly, and later inputting your data.Use “lect3_3” data set based on the initial student info survey.Identifying each respondent’s questionnaireFor questionnaire, assign a unique identification number for that questionnaire. Write that numberon the questionnaire’s first page, top corner. Typically a running list starting from 1, then 2, and so on, will do.Defining your variablesHave a clean copy of the questionnaire to guide you. What comes next is a sequence of steps to follow, and some explanation about why these steps need to be done.Launch the SPSS program.What opens up is the data editor. This is the interface you will work in for this assignment.Look at the SPSS data editor. Note that it is made up of columns and rows. The columns form the variables, and the rows form the cases. We will work on defining your variables first.Look at the bottom of the grid. Click on the tab “Variable View.”What you will see is a list of columns, titled “Name,” “Type,” “Width,” and so on.We will define variables by filling in information for most of these columns.The first variable to define is usually the identification number you assign to each person.Double click on the box under “Name.”Type “id” in the box. “id” is the name of the variable.SPSS has quite a few restrictions for what is acceptable as a variable name.The variable name must be no more than 8 letters or numbers; and certain characters are not allowed, such as “?”.Go to the box under “Type” and click on the box.Double-click on the small gray box.For “Type”, you have to select the type of variable. Choose “Numeric” and set Width at 8, Decimal Places at 0.1COMM 301L: Empirical Research in CommunicationIntroduction to SPSSClick “OK”.In the same row, go to “Label” and double click on the box.“Label” is where you can give the variable a descriptive label. This is useful because the variable name itself, being only 8 characters long, sometimes cannot describe the variablewell.For the variable “id,” type in the label box “Identification number”. For the rest of the boxes, leave them as they are.Next will come the actual questions you have asked in the questionnaire.Each question should be treated as a variable. Usually, what happens is that you define the variables in the order they appear on your questionnaire. This will make your data entry easier.Defining some common variables with two valuesI will show you an example of how to define the common variable – gender. Follow the steps and learn the principles.For gender:Click a box under “Name”.Type “gender”.For “Type”, choose “Numeric”, set Width at 8, Decimal Places at 0.Since “gender” the variable name is clear, we do not need to label it more under “Label”.Now for “gender” click its box under “Values”. Click on the small gray box.What you are going to do next is to assign numerical values to the different states of gender, female and male.So in the field for “Value”, type 0.Go to the field “Value Label”, type “Female”.Click on the “Add” button. Always remember to do this step.Next, in the field for “Value”, type 1.In the field “Value Label”, type “Male”.Click “Add”.Click “OK”.Next, we should define missing values. Missing values can be used for a number of purposes. The most common one is for missing data. For example, some respondent did not indicate his or her gender, and you cannot tell from other information you have. In the box for “Missing”, click on the small gray box.Check “Discrete missing values”.Type in the first box 99So that means if you have a respondent whose gender information is missing, you will enter for that person’s gender a 99 Here, the numbers for missing values should be numbers far away from the numbers you are using for your variables values, in this case 0 and 1.Leave the rest of the boxes as they are.2COMM 301L: Empirical Research in CommunicationIntroduction to SPSSSecond approach is just leave a missing data as it is. SPSS will automatically recognize missing value and let you know whenever it computes. Defining a Likert scale question with a 7-point agreement scaleNext, I’ll show an example of how to define a typical Likert scale question with a 7-point agreement scale. Q1: I expect to do well in this course.Strongly disagree (1)Disagree (2)Somewhat disagree (3)Neutral (4)Somewhat agree (5)Agree (6)Strong agree (7)Click a box under “Name”.Call this variable dowell, so type “dowell” in the box.For “Type”, choose “Numeric”, set Width at 8, Decimals at 0.Click on “Label”.Since “dowell” is not very descriptive, so type as its label “Expectations to do well in the course”. Now for “dowell” click its box under “Values”. Click on the small gray box.What you are going to do next is to assign numerical values using the question’s 7-point scale.So in the field for “Value”, type 1.Go to the field “Value Label”, type “Strongly disagree”, as per the question’s scale above.Click on the “Add” button. Always remember to do this step.Next, in the field for “Value”, type 2.In the field “Value Label”, type “Disagree”.Click “Add”.In the field for “Value”, type 3.In the field “Value Label”, type “Somewhat disagree”.Click “Add”.And so on, until you have defined the entire 7-point scale.As a rule, we use higher numbers to indicate more (or a positive side) of the thing we are measuring. In this case, higher numbers mean higher level of agreement.Give an appropriate variable name to each of the other questions on the questionnaire and then proceed with the steps below.3COMM 301L: Empirical Research in CommunicationIntroduction to SPSSRepeating the scale Now, once you have defined a value scale, such as the 7-point agreement