Spss statistics meaning
To obtain descriptive statistics for nominal variables, click Analyze, Descriptive Statistics, Frequencies. Scale*: Range, Interquartile Range, Variance, Standard Deviation You can examine dispersion by using the following: In addition to knowing the “center” of your data, you will also want to know its dispersion (how far it is spread out around your “center”). *SPSS uses the term “Scale” for Interval and Ratio levels of measurement. Here are the central tendencies that are appropriate for different levels of measurement: The mode is the value that occurs most frequently. The median is the datum that is in the middle of the data when it is rank-ordered (from lowest to highest). The mean is a statistical average (the summation of all data values divided by the number of data). Although you could add up all of the 1s (males) and 2s (females) and then divide by 25, the average, 1.4, makes no sense.
Assume you have 25 people in your dataset: 15 have identified as male and 10 people have identified as female. Be aware that SPSS will calculate statistics even if the measure of central tendency and dispersion are not appropriate. What do I mean by inappropriate descriptive statistics? The General Social Survey includes two attributes for the variable SEX: male or female. (Whether or not this is exhaustive is another discussion). Descriptive statistics are statistics that describe a variable’s central tendency (the ‘middle’ or expected value) and dispersion (the distribution of the variable’s responses).