Using SPSS to Understand Research and Data Analysis.

• 1.5a The SPSS Start Up Tutorial

SPSS for Windows also has many built-in help features that you can access at any point while using SPSS. We recommend that you run the SPSS Tutorial, which you can access when you open up SPSS. You must either have SPSS installed on your hard drive or be able to access SPSS on a network in order to open the program.

If you are confused about how to open SPSS, ask your instructor or see Appendix 1, where we provide more information about accessing SPSS from your hard drive or from a network. For now, to illustrate how to access the SPSS tutorial, we will assume that SPSS is installed on your computer. Regardless of how you access SPSS, the Start Up Screen will look the same.

Hint: You have undoubtedly had two programs running simultaneously on your computer. Many people use the task bar at the bottom of their computer screen to switch between windows runnning different programs/subprograms (that is, they alternately click on the boxes on the task bar).

This can be tedious (and sometimes difficult, since many windows can be open simultaneously in SPSS). Here is a handy short-cut for switching between active windows:

• Simultaneously press the alt and the tab buttons on the keyboard.
• When you press alt-tab, a pop-up will display all running programs/windows.
• While still depressing the alt key, tap the tab key to move between programs.

This will facilitate your moving back and forth between the browser window displaying this book and the window in which SPSS is open.

To open SPSS from your computer, click (in sequence) Start, Programs, SPSS for Windows, SPSS for Windows (Figure 1.1).

At startup a pop-up dialogue box appears asking "What would you like to do?" Select Run the tutorial, then click OK (Figure 1.2).

This start up screen will then close and the SPSS Tutorial window will open displaying the table of contents. To view a tutorial:

• Click on an item (e.g., Introduction), then click on a submenu item (e.g., Starting SPSS).
• A viewer window opens providing a tutorial on this topic.
• Click the right/left arrow buttons in the lower right of this screen to navigate through the topic.
• Click the x in the upper right corner to close the tutorial window.