3/7/2017 SPSSTutorials|SPSSCorrelationTest

SPSSTutorials

SPSSCorrelationTest
SPSS correlation test is a procedure for testing whether two metric
ByRubenGeert
variablesarelinearlyrelatedinsomepopulation.Theextenttowhichthey
vandenBergon
areisusuallyexpressedbyanumber,calledthecorrelationcoefficient. *
September16,
Thenullhypothesisimpliesthatnolinearrelationwhatsoeverispresentin
2014underSPSS
betweenthevariables,whichimpliesacorrelationof0.Thefigurebelow
Correlation
illustratesthebasicidea.
Tutorials.

SPSSCorrelationTestExample

Apolicymakerwantstoknowwhetherageandnettmonthlyincomeare
related in any way. She asks 30 respondents, resulting in
age_income.sav. Do these data render it likely that age and income are
relatedintheresearchpopulation?Thesyntaxbelowopensthedata.

*1.Setdefaultdirectory.

cd'd:downloaded'./*orwhereverdatafileislocated.

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*2.Opendata.

getfile'age_income.sav'.

1.QuickDataCheck

Beforerunninganystatisticaltests,wefirstwanttohaveanideaofwhat
the data basically look like. A nice option here is a scatter plot. The
screenshotswalkyouthroughrunningone.

We'llfirstnavigateto Graphs LegacyDialogs Scatter/Dot...

Next,weselect SimpleScatter and

click Define
Wemoveincometo YAxis and
ageto XAxis .
Clicking Paste resultsinthesyntaxbelow.

*Runscatterplotofageversusincome.

GRAPH/scatteragewithincome.

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ResultingSca erPlot

Inthiscase,thescatterplotlooksplausible.Allrespondentshaveanage
between, say, 20 and 68. The ages are reasonably spread out with an
average around 45. Next, income ranges from roughly 1000, through
4500,. This is the kind of range we'd expect for monthly income in a
developedcountry.
On top of how age and income income are distributed separately, we
also see that older respondents tend to have higher incomes. This
indicatesapositivecorrelationbetweenageandincome.

2.AssumptionsCorrelationTest

Interpretation of the correlation coefficient itself doesn't require any

assumptions. However, the significance test for a correlation does make
somebasicassumptions.Theseare

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1.independentobservations(or,moreprecisely,independentandidentically
distributedvariables)
2.thesamplesizeisreasonablylarge(sayN>30)

3.RunSPSSCorrelationTest

Thescreenshotshowsthestandardwaytoobtaincorrelations.However,
thisproducesmessysyntaxandoutputsowe'lldoitdifferentlywecould
justtypeandrun
correlationsageincome.

We think this is a faster and cleaner way to obtain a full correlation

matrix.*Abetteralternative,resultingincleaneroutput,isusingtheWITH
keywordasshowninthesyntaxbelow.*

*1.Fullcorrelationmatrix.

correlationsageincome.

*2.Customcorrelationmatrix.

correlationsagewithincome.

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4.SPSSCorrelationTestOutput

The correlation itself is .730. This indicates a strong (positive) linear

relationshipbetweenageandincome
Thepvalue,denotedbySig.(2tailed),is.000.Ifthecorrelationis0
inthepopulation,thenthere'sa0%chanceoffindingthecorrelationwe
foundinoursample.Thenullhypothesisisoftenrejectedifp<.05.We
concludethatthecorrelationisnot0inthepopulation(wenowexpectit
tobesomewherenear.73).
Moreprecisely,sincethisisa2tailedtest,thepvalueconsistsofa0%
chance that the sample correlation is larger than .73 and another 0%
chancethatit'ssmallerthan.73.
TheresultsarebasedonN=30cases.Sincethiscorrespondstoour
samplesize,weconcludethattherearenomissingvaluesinourdata.

5.ReportingaCorrelationTest

Whenreportingacorrelationtest,thecorrelationitselfandtheNonwhich
it'sbasedaremandatory.Regardingthesignificancetest,ashortwayof
reportingitis

Astronglinearrelationwasobservedbetweenageandincome,
Pearsoncorrelation=.73,p=.000(2sided).

Now,therearemultiplewaysofcalculatingapvalueforacorrelation.By
reportinglikewejustdid,it'snotobviouswhichmethodwasused.SPSS
uses a ttest here but unfortunately omits the tvalue and degrees of
freedom.*WebuiltanSPSScustomdialogforobtainingthem,whichcan
befreelydownloadedfromttestforPearsoncorrelationtool.

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Inourcase,itprintsthefollowingtoouroutputviewer:

WecannowmakeclearhowwearrivedatourpvaluebyreportingWe
foundaPearsoncorrelationof.73t(28)=5.7,p=.000(2sided).

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RelatedTutorials
CorrelationCoefficientWhatIsIt?

SPSSCORRELATIONSCommand

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ThisTutorialhas30Comments

ByMOSHOODoSHUFUNREWAonNovember3rd,2015
thankalot.whatamsearchingistheprocessofinputtingdatafrom
questionnaireintotheSPSSpackage.Andamparticularlyinterested
inothercomplexanalysisineconomic,socialscienceandscience
analysisusingSPSS.inshort,iwanttobeguruinthepackage

ByRubenGeertvandenBergonNovember2nd,2015
Thanksforyourcomment!Notethatwealsohaveatutorialonrunning
andinterpretingachisquaretestinSPSS.We'replanningtopublish
newtutorialsthatexplainbasicstatisticalreasoninginsimplelanguage
in1or2weekssostaytuned!

BymoshoodoshunfurewaonNovember1st,2015
ilovetheexplicitnatureofthetutorialexample,thanksalot.ireally
wanttoknowmoreabouthowtocomputethespssdataforthechi
squareandotherregressioninspss
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ByRubenGeertvandenBergonJune28th,2015
Thanksforthecompliment.Forsomesomesuggestionsregarding
Expandcomment|allcomments
yourquestion:

ByLuchoomunonJune28th,2015
ThanksforthetutorialonSPSS.Reallyveryexplicitandhelpful.WellI
wouldwishtoknowhowconductacorrelationtestwithsetofordinal
variables.Wanttotestrelationshipbetweenmanagementstyleand
staffmotivationlevel.thanksbeforehand.

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