Directions for Descriptive Statistics
Dataset: Frequency_Distributions_Graphs-Quantitative.sav
Under Analyze / Descriptive Statistics, SPSS provides three separate commands:
Frequencies – the simplest command. Useful for qualitative as well as quantitative data.
Descriptives – quick summary for quantitative data only. No direct access to graphs.
Explore – most comprehensive command for quantitative data. Calculates descriptive statistics
for subgroups (values) of a second variable – e.g. mean and SD for males and mean and SD for
females.
Mean
Median
Mode
Standard deviation
Standard error of mean
Confidence Interval for
Mean
Variance
Minimum
Maximum
Range
Interquartile Range
Quartiles
Percentiles
Skewness
Kurtosis
Sum
Outliers
Access to graphs?
Produces descriptives
for subgroups? (e.g.
male / female )
Frequencies
Descriptives
Explore
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Histogram
Bar Chart
Pie Chart
No
X
X
X
No
X
X
X
X
Histogram
Stem & Leaf
Boxplots
Yes
1. Open the dataset containing the male student weights.
2. Choose Analyze / Descriptive Statistics / Frequencies.
3. Highlight the variable you want to analyze in the box at the left and use the Right-pointing arrow
to move the variable name into the Variable(s) box. Uncheck the Display frequency tables box
at the lower left. Click on the Statistics… button in the upper right. Select the descriptive
statistics you want to see. If you want to see the values of the variable that fall at specific
percentiles, click the Percentile(s) box and type in a percentile you want to see. Click on the Add
button to move that percentile into the list to be computed.
Example choices
4. Press Continue to return to the main Frequencies page. Press OK.
5. The descriptive statistics will appear in the Output window.
Both the quartiles (25th,
50th, 75th) and the
specially requested
Percentiles (15th, 85th) are
shown here.
6. Alternatively, you can use the Analyze / Descriptive Statistics / Descriptives command. Click on
the Options… button to access the choice of statistics.
If you have selected several variables, the Display Order panel at the bottom of the screen lets
you control the order in which the variables summaries are shown.
7. Click Continue and then click OK to view your output.
8. The output is set to display horizontally which can make it hard to read. If you want to make the
output display vertically, follow these steps.
a. Double click on top of the Descriptive Statistics text box in the Output window. This will
open the SPSS Pivot Table
b. Choose Pivot / Transpose Rows and Columns from the menus.
c. The output will pivot
d. To save the transposed results into your Output window, click the red  in the upper
right hand corner of the pivot table window.