How to Understand SPSS for a Two-Way Chi-Square
The two-way chi square test measures the relationship between two variables that are easy to cross-tabulate. It also measures the strength of that relationship in terms of statistical significance. SPSS, a user-friendly statistical software program popular with universities and government agencies, can easily calculate a two-way chi square statistic. SPSS for Windows is menu-driven and generates output that is easy to read and interpret.
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Instructions
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Conducting and Interpreting a Two-Way Chi Square With SPSS
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Go to the top menu on the Data Editor page in SPSS (the page that resembles a spreadsheet and displays your data) and select "Analyze." This opens a drop-down menu. From that menu, select "Descriptive Statistics" and then the heading "Crosstabs." This will open a Crosstabs window.
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Cross-tabulate the variables you want to analyze. In the Cross Tabs window, you will select the variables you want and place them in the "Rows" and "Columns" boxes. Suppose for example you want to analyze the relationship between gender (male and female) and political party preference (Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, or Other). To make reading the output easier, it is a good idea to place the variable with the most levels of measurement in the "Rows" box. For this example, you would place political party preference in the Rows box because it has four measurement levels.
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Click "Statistics" in the Crosstabs window. This opens a new window, "Crosstabs: Statistics." Click the Chi Square box in this window, and click "Continue." This will close the Statistics window and return you to the Crosstabs window.
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Click "Paste" in the Crosstabs window. This will open a Syntax window in SPSS, which will display the syntax commands for the two-way Chi Square test. From the Syntax window, click the "Run" command at the top of the window and select "all." This executes the analysis.
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Examine and interpret your output, which will appear in the Output window in SPSS. Use your statistics guide or manual if you need help interpreting the results. The key result you will want to look at in your output is the Pearson Chi Square statistic and the two-sided significance value. If the significance value is less than .05, then a statistically significant relationship exists between the two variables.
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Tips & Warnings
Save your syntax file, as you will need it if you run future two-way Chi Square tests. If you run a similar analysis, all you'll have to do is change the name of the variables, the data file used, or both.
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Comments
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How do I write the chi-square data results from SPSS into APA style? do I use the word "cross tab results were significant or not significant? or do I use chi-square instead of cross tab?
