Descriptives
Good for the following: numerical variables

You can find further descriptive information about your variable by choosing “Analyze,” “Descriptive Statistics,” and “Descriptives” from your Data Editor window.  You may choose the variables for which you want descriptive statistics in the same fashion that you would choose them for frequencies.  The  “Save standardized values as variables” choice creates and saves one Z-score variable for each selected variable. New variable names are created by prefixing the letter z to the first seven characters of original variable names.

Frequencies
Good for the following: categorical and (sometimes) numerical variables

A common way of picturing your data is looking at the frequencies.  Frequencies are merely counts of each datum, and a frequency chart puts these counts into a table.  (You are not actually creating a “picture” here, per se, but you are condensing your data in a way to view its distribution.)  To create a frequency table for a variable, from the menu across the top of the Data Editor window click on “Analyze” then “Descriptives” then “Frequencies.”  Select those variables for which you want frequency charts by clicking on the variable name and clicking on the arrow button pointing to the right.  (You may choose more than one variable at a time by clicking on the top-most variable name you would like, holding down the left shift key, and then clicking on the bottom-most variable name you would like.  Then shoot them over by clicking on the arrow button pointing to the right.)  SPSS automatically defaults to giving you just the frequency tables ? notice the “Display frequency tables” box is checked.  If you do not want SPSS to create a frequency table, and you only want other statistics or charts, you may deselect the “Display frequency tables” box.

Explore
Good for the following: describing the relationship between numerical and categorical variables

The “Explore” function can give you the descriptives of numerical variables and it can help you visualize the relationship between a dependent, numerical variable and the levels of an independent, categorical variable (also called a factor).  You can access this function by clicking on “Analyze,” “Descriptive Statistics,” and “Explore.”  In the “dependent list” box you should place only numerical variables; the descriptive statistics that SPSS runs are really only appropriate for this type of variable.  In the “factor list” box you should place only categorical variables; your dependent variable will be factored by the factor or independent variables that you select.  For example, if you are interested in exploring the relationship between starting salary and gender, you would place the numerical variable “starting salary” in the dependent list box and gender in the factor list box.  That way you will get information regarding starting salary for men and starting salary for women ? thus, you are factoring your dependent variable “starting salary.”

The “Explore” dialogue box automatically defaults to giving you a range of statistics and a set of plots ? notice the “Display” section at the bottom left of the box.  If you don’t want “Both” you may choose “Statistics” or “Plots” separately.  You may also modify the statistics and plots that SPSS will run by clicking on the “Statistics” button and the “Plots” button.  For “plots,” SPSS automatically defaults to giving you boxplots and stem-and-leaf frequency distributions; you have the option of selecting a histogram and deselecting others if you should like.