Double click on the SPSS icon. This will take you into SPSS for Windows, a statistics software package. Once you are in SPSS, you may be presented with a menu. You want to enter a new data set.

You should see a blank grid on your screen. In the menu above the grid, find AData@ and click on ADefine Variables.@ In the highlighted box, type your first variable name. Click Aok.@

Tab over to the next column in the grid and name this your second variable. Repeat if you have additional variables.

Using the mouse or the arrow keys, enter your data in the columns you have named. Remember, a column is a variable; a row is a Acase.@ If two variables are part of the same Acase@ (e.g., they came from the same subject, or event), they should be on the same line.

If you have a diskette with you, you can save your data to it. Go to AFile@ and then ASave@ and then give your data file a name.

To find the correlation between two variables, go to AStatistics,@ then ACorrelate@ and then ABivariate.@ Highlight a variable, and then send it over to the list of variables to be correlated by clicking on the arrow pointing right. If you want to send it back, highlight it again, and the arrow will switch directions. Say Aok.@

You will see the results of your correlation on the screen. You will get a 2 x 2 grid, which lists each variable=s correlation with itself (1.0) and its correlation with the other variable. The table will also give information about whether the correlation is statistically significant.

To get the Afancier@ Cronbach=s alpha reliability coefficient, click on AStatistics,@ then AScale,@ then AReliability Analysis.@ Select the variables you want in the reliability analysis. Note that this statistic allows you to compute the reliability of more than 2 variables. (Cronbach=s alpha also takes into account the variability of the scores -- it means more to get high reliability for highly variable measures than less variable measures).

To analyze a new data set, go to AFile@ then ANew@ and then AData.@ You will be prompted to save the current data set you are working on. You can only have one data file open at a time in SPSS for Windows.