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Thorne and Giesen Book Cover
Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences, 4/e
Michael Thorne, Mississippi State University -- Mississippi State
Martin Giesen, Mississippi State University -- Mississippi State

Measures of Central Tendency

SPSS Exercises

USING SPSS-EXAMPLE AND EXERCISE

From now on, we will assume that you have read Appendix 4 on using SPSS.

SPSS has several procedures that can provide measures of central tendency and dispersion. For example, Frequencies, Descriptives, or Explore could be used.

Example: We will use SPSS to obtain the three measures of central tendency (mean, median, and mode) using the data in Problem 6. The steps are as follows:
  1. Start SPSS, enter the data, and name the variable act.
  2. We will use Frequencies to obtain a frequency distribution and descriptive statistics.
  3. Click Analyze>Descriptive Statistics>Frequencies.
  4. Move act into the Variables box.
  5. Click the Statistics box to open the Frequencies: Statistics dialog box. There click Mean, Median, Mode under Central Tendency, and then click Continue>OK.
  6. The statistics and a frequency distribution should appear in the output Viewer window. The output showing the descriptive statistics and frequency distribution for Problem 6 should appear as follows:

<a onClick="window.open('/olcweb/cgi/pluginpop.cgi?it=gif:: ::/sites/dl/free/0072832517/55314/c5_spss1.gif','popWin', 'width=NaN,height=NaN,resizable,scrollbars');" href="#"><img valign="absmiddle" height="16" width="16" border="0" src="/olcweb/styles/shared/linkicons/image.gif"> (6.0K)</a>

Exercise Using SPSS
  1. Using the data in Problem 3, use SPSS to obtain the mean, median, and mode of the scores.

Click here to view the answers. (30.0K)