SPSS Tutorials: Data Creation in SPSS

1. Data Creation in SPSS When you open the SPSS program, you will see a blank spreadsheet in Data View. If you already have another dataset open but want to create a new one, click File > New > Data to open a blank spreadsheet. You will notice that each of the columns is labeled “var.” The column

SPSS Tutorials: Variable Types

A variable’s type determines if a variable numeric or character, quantitative or qualitative. It also dictates what type of statistical analysis methods are appropriate for that data. This tutorial covers the variable types that SPSS recognizes. Variable Types In order for your data analysis to be accurate, it is imperative that you correctly identify

SPSS Tutorials: Date-Time Variables in SPSS

This tutorial covers how SPSS treats Date-Time variables, and how to use the Date & Time Wizard to create and compute variables using dates and times. 1. Working with Dates and Times in SPSS Datasets often include variables that denote dates or time. Thus, it is important to know how SPSS treats and works

Computing Variables in SPSS

This tutorial shows how to compute new variables in SPSS using formulas and built-in functions. The data file in example is available to download here. 1. Computing Variables Sometimes you may need to compute a new variable based on existing information (from other variables) in your data. For example, you may want to: Convert

Recoding Variables in IBM SPSS

This tutorial shows how to use Recode into Different Variables and DO IF syntax to change or merge the categories of string or numeric variables in SPSS. The data in example is available to download here. 1. Recoding (Transforming) Variables Sometimes you will want to transform a variable by combining some of its categories

Recoding String Variables (Automatic Recode) in SPSS

In SPSS, recoding categorical string variables to numeric codes and converting blank strings to missing values can be done automatically using Automatic Recode. The data in example is available to download here. 1. Recoding Categorical String Variables to Labeled Numeric Variables using Automatic Recode When writing down the observed values of a categorical variable,

Weighting Cases in IBM SPSS

In SPSS, weighting cases allows you to assign "importance" or "weight" to the cases in your dataset. Some situations where this can be useful include: Your data is in the form of counts (the number of occurrences) of factors or events. The "weight" is the number of occurrences. Your data requires adjustments to correct for over- or under-representation of certain characteristics in your sample. (This often happens with large surveys: a "weighting" variable is developed to adjust a sample's composition to be reflective of the population's composition, or to control for over- or under-reporting from a certain group.) The Pew Research Center often

How to Rank Cases in SPSS

In its simplest form, a rank transform converts a set of data values by ordering them from smallest to largest, and then assigning a rank to each value. In SPSS, the Rank Cases procedure can be used to compute the rank transform of a variable. The data used for example is available to download

Sorting cases or variables in SPSS

Sorting a dataset rearranges the rows with respect to one or more variables. This tutorial discusses how to sort data using the drop-down menus in SPSS. The data used for example is available to download here. 1. Sorting Data Sorting data allows us to re-organize the data in ascending or descending order with respect

Grouping or Splitting Data in SPSS

In SPSS, Split File is used to run statistical analyses on subsets of data without separating your data into two different files. When analyzing data, it is sometimes useful to temporarily "group" or "split" your data in order to compare results across different subsets. This can be useful when you want to compare frequency distributions or descriptive statistics with respect to the categories of some variable (e.g., Gender) - especially if you want separate tables of results for each