Variance
Variance is the degree of spread or variability in a continuous distribution
Variance provides a "description" of the distribution in terms of how observations cluster together or separate from each other. Variance is calculated by squaring the distance from an observation to the mean and summing them together. The distance has to be squared because observations can fall both under and above a mean value. These squared "distance" values are called mean squared deviations, or variance. Variance is a necessary calculation for computing the standard deviation of a distribution.
The steps for calculating variance in SPSS
1. The continuous data is entered into a column of a database.
2. Click Analyze.
3. Drag the cursor over the Descriptive Statistics drop-down menu.
4. Click on Descriptives.
5. Click on the continuous variable to highlight it.
6. Click on the arrow to move the outcome variable into the Variable(s): box.
7. Click on the Options button.
8. In the Dispersion table, click on the Variance box to select it.
9. Click Continue.
10. Click OK.
2. Click Analyze.
3. Drag the cursor over the Descriptive Statistics drop-down menu.
4. Click on Descriptives.
5. Click on the continuous variable to highlight it.
6. Click on the arrow to move the outcome variable into the Variable(s): box.
7. Click on the Options button.
8. In the Dispersion table, click on the Variance box to select it.
9. Click Continue.
10. Click OK.
The steps for interpreting the variance output in SPSS
1. Look in the Descriptive Statistics table, under the Variance column. This is the variance value that is interpreted.
Click on a button below to continue.
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