It Contains SPSS Basics Information, Data Preparation, Dictionary Tutorial and many other tools and techniques.
SPSS Output Tables SPSS Output Charts SPSS Output to WORD SPSS Output to Excel SPSS Output Tricks Exporting SPSS output is usually easier and faster than copy-pasting SPSS Output Introduction In SPSS, we usually work from 3 windows. These are the data editor window ; the syntax editor window ; the output viewer window . Our previous tutorials discussed the data […]
When working with SPSS, specifying missing values correctly is often an essential step in analyzing data. This tutorial demonstrates how to set missing values the right way. Setting Missing Values in SPSS Perhaps unsurprisingly, missing values can be specified with the MISSING VALUES command. A thing to note, however, is that missing values can be specified for multiple variables at […]
SPSS offers several ways to change a variable’s type. This tutorial will walk you through some examples. SPSS Variable Type – Why Change it in the First Place? What you can do with a variable may depend on its type and – to a lesser extent – on its format. For example, you can extract substrings from string variables but not from numeric variables. […]
The right way for changing variable names in SPSS is using RENAME VARIABLES. Changing variable names manually in variable view is a bad idea because you can’t keep track of what you did. This tutorial shows a better alternative. Changing Variable Names in SPSS Changing variable names with syntax is straightforward with the RENAME VARIABLES command. The main thing to keep in mind is […]
Changing a variable’s width is rarely necessary. Nevertheless, it’s good to know how when it’s needed and how it’s done. Changing Variable Width in SPSS For string variables, width refers to how many characters a value can hold. An exception are multibyte characters as explained in SPSS Unicode Mode. Somewhat confusingly, “width” is not the width of a variable’s column […]
A great way to start working from syntax is using “Paste” instead of “Ok”. However, there’s no “Paste” option for modifying most variable properties. This tutorial shows how handle that properly. Changing Variable Properties Note that all variable properties (such as variable labels and value labels) are part of the SPSS dictionary. It is strongly recommended you use syntax in […]
9. Missing Values per Case (Overview and data file are are found here) Missing values complicate some analyses or may sometimes indicate that respondents didn’t fill out the questionnaire very seriously. In any case, it’s a good idea to at least check how missing values are distributed over respondents and we often do so for sections […]
6. Inconvenient Distributions (Overview and data file are are found here) Let’s first state this clearly: we don’t exclude variables simply because their distributions are not to our liking. What we mean by “inconvenient distributions” are variables that don’t really provide us with useful information. This point is perhaps best explained by an example. Let’s inspect q4. […]
5. Presence of User Missing Values (Overview and data file are are found here) User missing values are values that we want to exclude from analysis. We do so by specifying (ranges of) values as “missing” in SPSS. For ordinal variables, we typically exclude answers such as “Don’t know” or “Not applicable”. For metric variables, we exclude values that are not […]
Summary (Overview and data file are are found here) SPSS has two variable types: string variables and numeric variables. String variables have “String” under Type in Variable View. All other variables are numeric. The screenshot below illustrates this point for hotel_evaluation.sav. 3. Undesirable Variable Types A problem with some data files is that they contain string variables that should have been numeric. A […]
1. SPSS Case Count and Variable Count (Overview and data file are are found here) The very first thing we want to know about basically any data file, are its dimensions: how many cases and how many variables does it contain? For a quick case count, select any cell in data view and press the CTRL + shortkey. Alternatively, just […]
Before you start analyzing real-world data, make sure you have a basic idea what your data look like. How many cases and variables do you have? Do their frequency distributions look plausible? Do you have any string variables and do you need to set any missing values? A quick data inspection takes little time and effort and may save you […]
Among the very best SPSS practices is running histograms over your metric variables. Doing so is a super fast way to detect problems such as extreme values and gain a lot of insight into your data. This tutorial quickly walks you through using bank_clean.sav, part of which is shown below. Option 1: FREQUENCIES without Frequency Tables If you’re running […]
When we start analyzing a data file, we first inspect our data for a number of common problems. For instance, we want to be sure that variables have the right formats, don’t contain any weird values and have plausible distributions. The table below proposes which steps should be taken and in which order. For getting […]
Managing variable and value labels without syntax is way more work than necessary. This tutorial explains how to do this more efficiently. Changing Variable Labels in SPSS As with other parts of the dictionary, there’s no “Paste” option for modifying variable labels. Be aware that manual modifications – apart from being time consuming – are not […]
The vast majority of statistical tests really just compare several populations on one variable or compare several variables in one population. Now, if we add to this comparison the number of variables or populations and the measurement levels of our variables then choosing the appropriate statistical test suddenly becomes remarkably easy.* The overviews below also nicely visualize how basic tests relate […]
This tutorial shows how to compute means over both variables and cases in a simple but solid way. We encourage you follow along by downloading and opening restaurant.sav, part of which is shown below. Quick Data Check Before computing anything whatsoever, we always need to know what’s in our data in the first place. Skipping this […]
A course was evaluated by 183 students. The data are in course_evaluation.sav, part of which is shown below. The teacher wants to know the average age of his students but we only have their date of birth. 1. Ensure Date of Birth is a Date Variable The first thing we’ll do is check if date of […]
In SPSS, IF is a conditional COMPUTE command. It calculates a (possibly new) variable but only for those cases that satisfy some condition(s). This tutorial walks you through some typical examples of the IF command. Example 1 – Replace Missing Values With the syntax below we’ll first create some test data. Next we’ll set the existing variable score […]
SPSS RECODE replaces data values with different values. It comes in handy for merging categories, dichotomizing continuous variables and some other tasks. This tutorial walks you through its main options, best practices and pitfalls. SPSS Recode Example 1 For quickly getting very proficient with RECODE it’s recommended you follow along with the examples. You’ll soon notice […]
