How to Create APA Style Graphs and Then Teach SPSS to Do it Automatically!

In the strictest sense, APA style discourages the use of color in graphics, stipulating that it be used only when it is "absolutely necessary". Consequently, most universities and dissertation committees also discourage (or downright forbid) the use of color graphics in dissertation manuscripts. Personally, i find this irritating, as I think most graphical representations of data can be made more clear with the appropriate use of color. However, I suppose the guideline is meant to provide uniformity and consistency across manuscripts, which is understandable.

Unfortunately, if you use SPSS you've probably already discovered that it produces graphics in color by default. Not to worry, your graphs can be changed easily. Better yet, you can make simple adjustments to your SPSS settings that will force the program to create APA-compliant (i.e. black & white) graphics in all output! Here is how you do it:

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How to Conduct a Repeated Measures MANCOVA in SPSS

In today's blog entry, I will walk through the basics of conducting a repeated-measures MANCOVA in SPSS. I will focus on the most basic steps of conducting this analysis (I will not address some complex side issues, such as assumptions, power…etc). If you find yourself with lingering questions after walking through this blog, feel free to leave questions in the "comments" section, or visit the MANCOVA section of my discussion forum to find answers and/or ask questions of your own. Full disclosure: the example data used is from the SPSS sample/help files, and it can be downloaded below.

RIGHT-CLICK HERE AND "SAVE AS FILE" FOR SAMPLE DATA

Let's get started:

Repeated-Measures MANCOVA is used to examine how a dependent variable (DV) varies over time, using multiple measurements of that variable, with each measurement separated by a given period of time. In addition to determining whether the DV itself varies, a MANCOVA can also determine wether other variables are predictive of variability in the DV over time. If that wasn't crystal clear, don't worry, just keep reading.

Repeated-Measures MANCOVA Example:

In our example, your local stats store Stats "R" Us launched a marketing campaign, with three different strategies (variable name: promo; value labels: Strategy A, Strategy B, Strategy C). Stats "R" Us launched campaigns in markets of three different sizes (variable name: mktsize; value labels: Small, Medium, and Large), and measured the sales in each store every three months over the course of one year (4 time points; variable names: sales.1, sales.2, sales.3, and sales.4; see data below).

NOTE: Sales are scaled in "thousands" (e.g. 70.63 is actually $70,630). Also, your data should be in person-level (a.k.a. "wide") format (as opposed to person-period, a.k.a. "long", format), meaning each row of data is a single case (store, in our example). If it were in person-period (long) format, each case (store) would have the number of rows equal to the number of repeated measures (four, in our example), because the repeated measures (sales.1, sales.2, sales.3, and sales.4) would be stacked to form a single variable (Sales).

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Using Syntax to Assign 'Variable Labels' and 'Value Labels' in SPSS

Updated on Tuesday, July 9, 2013 at 12:14PM by Jeremy Taylor

Preparing a dataset for analysis is an arduous process. Besides recoding and cleaning variables, a diligent data analyst also must assign variable labels and value labels, unless they choose to wait until after your output is exported to Microsoft Word. Unfortunately, that option only leaves additional opportunity for error and confusion, not to mention the inefficiency of editing tables in Microsoft Word. Who among us have not been frustrated while wrestling with Microsoft Word?

When used in conjunction with the customizable SPSS table "Looks" function, formatting your variable labels and value labels can make your SPSS results tables nearly ready for publication, immediately after analysis (CLICK HERE FOR TUTORIAL VIDEO ON TABLE "LOOKS")! Fortunately, SPSS syntax offers a fairly straightforward method for assigning proper labels to both your variable labels and value labels.

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How to make SPSS produce all tables in APA format automatically!

Updated on Wednesday, June 8, 2011 at 3:43PM by Jeremy Taylor

Formatting a graph that was exported from SPSS to Microsoft Word can be an absolute pain. Since neither program is known for it's simplicity or "user-friendliness", the interaction between the two can be predictably tedious and frustrating. The process of converting a standard SPSS table to APA format might be bearable, when you are talking about a single table, but can become overwhelming when you have an entire manuscript worth of tables. Fortunately, a few minor alterations to your SPSS settings can make SPSS do most of the heavily lifting for you, making SPSS automatically produce tables that closely resemble APA format and cutting down your formatting time by as much as 90%!

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Top Ten Tips for Data Analysis to Make Your Research Life Easier!

While there is no "magic bullet" to make stats and data analysis easy to understand and helpful in our research, there are some things that you can do to avoid pitfalls and help things run smoothly. This "top ten" list offers a few of those things that I think you will find helpful! I'll be posting a video of this list later today on my Stats Videos page.

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