Click Analyze

Now that your data are entered and saved, it is time to analyze. Click “Analyze,” then “Correlate” and then “Bivariate.” 

Bivariate Correlations box

This box will appear. You will see your two variable names in a window on the left. You will also see an empty window on the right. Your goal is to transfer each variable from the window on the left to the window on the right. To do this, click on each variable name to highlight it and click the arrow button in the center of the box. Move your variables to the box on the right, one at a time, starting with the first variable.

Now move the second variable

You will see that the first variable has been moved to the Variables box on the right. Now it is time to move the second variable. To do so, click on the second variable to highlight it and click the arrow button again.

You should see this…

Both variables should appear in the variables window on the right. Now its time to do one last thing. You want to make sure that the Pearson box is checked. To check this box, simply click it and a check will appear.

Now Click OK

Click the OK button and your data will be processed.

You will see your results

SPSS will print out your results.

Save your results!

To a meaningful place and with a meaningful name. In this example, I decided to call this file “Correlation between glasses of water and skin elasticity Output.spo.” This will help me easily find this output file if I want to look at it in the future.

But wait, you are not quite finished

You still need to create a scatterplot. To do this, go back to your data file. Do not close your output file. Keeping it open now will help you in the future. You can return to your data file by clicking in the task bar at the bottom of your computer screen. From the data file, click “Graphs” and then “Scatter.”

Scatterplot Box

This box will appear. Make sure that the “Simple” selection is selected by clicking on it. When selected, the “Simple” selection should have a dark boarder. When you are finished, click the “Define” button

Simple Scatterplot Box

This box will appear.  You will see your two variable names in a window on the left. Your goal will be to move these variables to the small windows on the right. You want to move your first variable to the “Y axis” box. To do this, click on the variable name to highlight it and move the variable by using the corresponding arrow button. In this example, I will click on the name “water” because it is my first variable. I will move it over with the arrow button that is second from the top.

You will see this…

Your first variable name will appear in the “X Axis” box. Now it’s time to move your second variable over to the “Y Axis” box. To do this, click on the name of the second variable to highlight it and move it over by using the corresponding arrow button. In this example, I click on the name “skin,” my second variable, and I will click on the top arrow button.

You will see this…

Both variable names will appear in boxes on the right. Now click the OK button and wait a few seconds for processing.

You will see your Output again

This time, your output file will contain both the Pearson’s r values and the scatterplot. By keeping your output file open while you generated the scatterplot, you have now added the graph to your original output file.

 Background | Enter Data | Analyze Data | Interpret Data | Report Data