CONTENT: Preface vii References vii Acknowledgments ix 1. Overview 1 Statistical Software 1 About the General Social Survey Data 2 SPSS Electronic Files 2 Opening Existing Data Files 2 Importing Data From Non-SPSS File Formats 4 Opening Previously Created Output Files 6 Saving Files 7 Creating New SPSS Data Files 7 Creating and Editing SPSS Output Files 9 Preferences: Getting Started 9 Measurement of Variables Using SPSS 11 References 12 2. Transforming Variables 13 Receding and Computing Variables 13 Receding Variables 13 Receding Variables: Dichotomies and Dummy Variables 14 Computing Variables 17 Using the Count Function 18 Computing an Index Using the Mean 20 Multiple Response 24 3. Selecting and Sampling Cases 27 Targeted Selection 27 Random Selection 30 Selecting Cases for Inclusion in a New Data Set 31 Chapter 4. Organization and Presentation of Information 33 Measures of Central Tendency and Variability 33 Frequency Distributions 35 Chapter 5. Charts and Graphs 43 Boxplot 43 Legacy Options for Graphs (Boxplot Example) 46 Scatterplot 47 Legacy Scatterplot 49 Histogram 50 Bar Graph 55 Pie Chart 59 Additional Graphic Capabilities in SPSS Statistics62 6. Cross-Tabulation and Measures of Association for Nominal and Ordinal Variables ' 63 Bivariate Analysis63 Adding Another Variable or Dimension to the Analysis 65 Measures of Association for Nominal and Ordinal Variables 67 Lambda 67 Gamma and Somers' d 69 References 72 7.Correlation and Regression Analysis 73 Bivariate Regression 73 Correlation 75 Multiple Regression 78 8. Testing Hypotheses Using Means and Cross-Tabulation 83 Comparing Means 83 Comparing Means: Paired-Samples t Test 85 Comparing Means: Independent-Samples t Test 87 Chi-Square 89 9. Analysis of Variance 95 One-WayANOVA 95 ANOVA With Regression 97 10. Editing Output 101 Editing Basic Tables 101 Copying to Microsoft Word 103 Exporting Output 104 Editing Charts and Graphs 105 11. Advanced Applications 109 Merging Data From Multiple Files 109 Opening Previously Created Syntax Files 112 Creating New SPSS Syntax Files 113 About the Author 115