SPSS Tutorials: Home

Our written step-by-step tutorials are organized into sections. Users can work through the tutorials in order or skip through to topics of interest.

Section 1: Intro to the SPSS Environment is intended for new users of SPSS. In this section, you'll learn how to:

• Navigate the SPSS interface using the drop-down menus or syntax.
• Create a new dataset or import data from a file.

Section 2: Working with Data covers data manipulation and cleaning of all kinds. In this section, you'll learn how to:

• Create, modify, or compute new variables.
• Manipulate a dataset by splitting, merging, or transposing techniques.

Section 3: Exploring the Data is intended for users who have mastered the skills in Section 1 and are ready to begin data analysis. In this section, you'll learn how to:

• Generate descriptive statistics for numeric variables.
• Create frequency tables and crosstabulations of categorical variables.
• Graph the distributions or relationships of variables.
• Interpret these measures.

Section 4: Analyzing the Data is intended for users who are ready to begin data analysis that incorporates hypothesis testing. In this section, you'll learn how to conduct and interpret various analyses, including:

• Associations (Chi-Square, Pearson's Correlation)
• Comparing means (One Sample t Test, Independent Samples t Test, Paired Samples t Test, One-Way ANOVA)
• Predictive models (Multiple Regression, Logistic Regression, Ordinal Regression)

Our tutorials reference a dataset called "sample" in many examples. If you'd like to download the sample dataset to work through the examples, choose one of the files below:

Our tutorials were first created using SPSS Statistics Standard versions 21 and 22. As of July 2018, they are being updated for SPSS Statistics Standard version 25.

Note: If you use a different version of SPSS (e.g., 20), or a different edition (e.g., premium rather than standard), you may notice differences in SPSS options and features. As a result, you may notice minor discrepancies between the SPSS tutorial content (provided here) and your personal SPSS user experience. In most situations, the tutorial content provides adequate guidance across versions and editions.

Kent State University maintains a university-wide, limited seat license for SPSS Statistics Standard and SPSS Amos. These programs can be installed on any university-owned computer at no charge. SPSS licenses must be renewed yearly, typically in August. SPSS Statistics is compatible with Windows and Mac and operating systems, but SPSS Amos is only compatible with Windows. (Note for Linux users: Support for the Linux platform has been dropped as of the SPSS Statistics v28 release. The last version of SPSS Statistics to support Linux is SPSS Statistics v27.)

SPSS Statistics and SPSS Amos are separate programs. They must be installed separately, and their licenses must be renewed separately. Renewing your SPSS Statistics license will not automatically renew your SPSS Amos license (and vice versa).

Currently, Kent State's licensing agreement only permits SPSS products to be used for teaching and research purposes. If you need to use SPSS for any reason outside of teaching or research, please contact the Division of Information Technology.

University-Owned Computers

Please contact your local support person to receive a copy of the software or to renew your existing license.

• Kent campus departments - local desktop support contacts
• Regional campuses - local desktop support contacts

Personally-Owned Computers

Faculty/Staff

Faculty who wish to install SPSS Statistics or SPSS Amos on their personally owned computers may purchase an educational license through one of IBM's selected list of vendors.

Note that faculty and staff wishing to purchase Amos this way are only able to purchase it in a bundle with SPSS Statistics.

Currently enrolled students

Students can purchase the SPSS Statistics or SPSS Amos GradPacks through one of IBM's selected vendors.

To determine which edition of the GradPack to purchase, please consult with your instructor.

Public Computers on Campus

Most public computer labs on campus have SPSS installed. Information Technology has a list of public computer lab locations and hours at the Kent campus.

These tutorials were created by Statistical Consulting at Kent State University Libraries.

Current authors

• Kristin Yeager

Past authors

• Elsa Barletta
• Preya Bhattacharya
• Ryan Burke
• Dan Burrill
• Morgan Chaney
• Edward Chiyaka
• Subir Goyal
• Meghan Novisky
• Moira O'Neill
• Victoria Reynolds
• Sarah Samblanet
• Ying Zhu