Activity 18.3
Creating A Simple Bar Chart Using SPSS

Go to SPSS and open the "GSS2000depr" data set that accompanies this text (download / help downloading). You are going to create a bar graph for the sex of the respondents in the survey. Click on "Graphs" near the top of the page; when the gray box appears, click on "Bar." A small window titled "Bar Charts" will appear. Click on "Simple," check off "Summaries for groups of cases," and click on the "Define" button. Now you will see a new window titled "Define Simple Bar: Summaries for Groups of Cases." Under "Bars Represent" check off "% of cases," scroll through the variables on the left, and move "sex" into the box titled "Category Axis." Then click on "Titles" and type "Sex of 2000 GSS Respondents" in Line 1 under "Title." Click on the "Continue" button and then when the original chart window reappears, click on the button labeled "OK." A bar graph will appear in SPSS Output Viewer. If you want to customize your bar graph, right-click anywhere in the graph and choose the option "SPSS Chart Object." A new window will open that allows you to customize your bar graph. Looking at the bar graph you constructed, what are the sex characteristics of the 2000 General Social Survey sample?