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California State University, Dominguez Hills
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Soka University Japan - Transcend Art and Peace
Created: October 28, 2003
Latest Update: October 28, 2003
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

SPSS Crosstabs

Site Copyright: Jeanne Curran and Susan R. Takata and Individual Authors, October 2003.
"Fair use" encouraged.

A crosstab is a table of data in which we count the frequency of intersection of variable categories. In other words, we count the number of times males vote for Schwarzenegger (one of the variable categories) and the number of times males vote for Bustamante (another of the variable categories) and the number of times males vote for Other (the third of the variable categories. Then we do the same for the females. We do this so we can look at the data patterns and see if gender makes a difference in who you vote for. If the patterns look interesting, like maybe gender does make a difference, then we consider trying to measure how much difference it makes. Maybe we could predict how you would vote better if we knew your gender. That's what crosstabs are for.

Now let's try doing a crosstab, step by step.

1. Use my crsj.sav file. Remember that you have to change the 0's to 9's in the data editor, unless you already saved it that way.
2. Choose analyze in the top men.
3. Choose descriptive sttistics.
4. Choose crosstabs.
5. Transfer the variable M/F to rows.
6. Transfer the variable on Bustamante, Schwarzenegger, and Other to columns. I think it was variable 14, redubdgt.
7. See any patterns?

8. Now go back and choose for the column variable whether they voted in the last election?
9. See any patterns?

   Print a crosstab that interests you, so we can do an interpretation in class.