Topic 5: B – Creating Histograms and Boxplots

Video (2:29)

The following video illustrates exploratory data analysis for one quantitative variable by creating histograms and boxplots using GRAPHS – CHART BUILDER. The following files are associated with this video.

• All Available Transcripts – SPSS Tutorials

• DATASET USED:
  • PULSE_STEP3.SAV

• SPSS OUTPUT CREATED:
  • Topic5BOneQVarHistBox.SPV

• Menus and Steps Used:
  • Double-click on the SPSS dataset (STEP3) to open SPSS with that data loaded
  • For Histograms – Go to GRAPHS – CHART BUILDER
    • Choose Histogram from the bottom left menu
    • Double-Click or drag the first selection into the graph preview area
    • Drag a quantitative variable onto the x-axis
    • Using the Element Properties, you can decide whether to display frequencies or percentages on the y-axis, click Apply to save any changes
    • Click OK
  • For Boxplots – Go to GRAPHS – CHART BUILDER
    • Select Boxplots from the lower left menu
    • Double-Click or drag the LAST chart – the single boxplot – into the graph preview area
    • Drag a quantitative variable onto the y-axis (if you have recently used this tool there may already be a variable, reset if needed)
    • Click OK
  • Save SPSS output by going to yhe output and File – Save or by closing SPSS and following the prompts.

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This document is linked from our main SPSS page under Software.