Clustered Bar Charts

This Tech Tip demonstrates how to run a clustered bar chart. With IBM SPSS Statistics, you have the power to work inside a single, integrated interface to run descriptive statistics, regression, advanced statistics, and machine learning models. Its seamless integration with open source and quick help at your fingertips ensures you are well-equipped for any data analysis task, making you feel confident and capable. 

Clustered bar charts allow users to visualize a crosstab table. In this Tech Tip, a crosstab is run between two variables. These are self-reported happiness (3 categories) and marital status (5 categories). Examining the data in a crosstab table, users examine counts and percentages across numerous cells. A clustered bar chart quickly provides a summary of the crosstab table.

To run a clustered bar chart, users can go to the Graphs menu and select Chart Builder. Users will click on the Gallery Tab and choose from the Bar options. Users will then drag the clustered bar chart option into the Chart Preview area. A variable is dragged onto the x-axis, and another variable is placed in the Cluster area. Users will then choose a statistic. When asking for a Percentage, users will need to click on the Set Parameters button. Users can select from Grand Total, Total for Each X-Axis Category or Total for Each Legend Variable Category. Once statistics are selected, users can click OK to run the chart.

Once the chart appears in the output view, users can double-click on the chart to open it in the Chart Editor window. Once the Chart Editor is open, users can go to the Elements menu and select Show Data Labels.  This can be useful when users want to see the exact values represented by the chart.