SPSS, Data Entry and

Descriptive Statistics
Dr Nahlah Alsaidi
MBBS, MPH, PhD
Community Medicine Department
MAHSA University
 Objectives
• To describe opening and closing SPSS
• To introduce the look and structure of SPSS
• To introduce the data entry windows:
– Data View and
– Variable View
• To outline the components necessary to define a variable
• To introduce the SPSS online tutorial
• To demonstrate data description in SPSS
 INTRODUCTION
• SPSS stands for for Statistical Package for the Social Sciences.
• SPSS is mainly used in the following areas like healthcare,
marketing, and educational research, market researchers,
health researchers, survey companies, education researchers,
government, marketing organizations, data miners, and many
others.
• It was originally launched in 1968 by SPSS Inc., and was later
acquired by IBM in 2009.
 Uses for SPSS

• Data management
• Data analysis
 Data management

• Defining variables
• Coding values
• Entering and editing data
• Creating new variables
• Recoding variables
• Selecting cases
 Opening SPSS

• Double click the SPSS icon on the desktop

OR

• Start/Programs/SPSS for Windows/SPSS**

• The following introductory screen should appear:
 Data Editor
• Data Editor comprises two screens:
– Data View: the previous screen
– Variable View: used to define the variables
• To move between the two:
– Use the View tab at the bottom of the screen
OR
– View/Variables from the Data View window
– View/Data from the Variable View window
Variable View
 Definition of variables

10 characteristics are used to define a variable:

Name Values
Type Missing
Width Column
Decimals Align
Label Measure
 Name

• Each variable must have a unique name of not more

than 8 characters and starting with a letter
• Try to give meaningful variable names:
– Describing the characteristic: for example, age
– Linking to the questionnaire: for example, A1Q3
• Keep the names consistent across files
 SPSS rules for variable names

• Variable names must be unique in the data file, i.e. occur only
once
• Must start with a letter
• Can be up to 64 characters in length, but 8 characters or less is
best
• Must not contain spaces/blanks, but cane use CamelCase or
underscore
• Cannot begin with special character $, #,@,&
• Must not end with a full stop, and
• Should reflect the content of the variable, eg ‘age’, ‘age_grp’,
‘education’, ‘q1b_1’
 Type

• Internal formats: • Output formats:

– Comma
– Numeric
– Dot
– String (alphanumeric)
– Scientific notation
– Date
– Dollar
– Custom currency
 Numeric

• Numeric variables:
– Numeric measurements
– Codes
• Definition of the size of the variable
 String (alphanumeric)

• String variables contain words or characters;

• strings can include numbers but, taken here as
characters, mathematical operations cannot be applied
to them.
• The maximum size of a string variable is 255
characters.
• String variables are used for answers that are words,
that is, answers that consist of characters.
 Date

• The input format for date variables must be defined,

such as DD/MM/YYYY, MM/DD/YYYY or
MM/DD/YY
• Computers store dates as numbers from a base date;
in SPSS, dates are stored as the number of seconds
from 14 October 1582
 Example

• Create two variables:

– ID: the unique identifier, which will be alphanumeric
with a maximum of 8 characters
– Age: the age of the respondent measured in years, a
discrete variable ranging between 10 and 100
 Labels
• Descriptors for the variables
• Maximum 255 characters
• Used in the output
 Values

• Value labels are descriptors of the categories of a

variable
• Coding
 Missing

• Defines missing values

• The values are excluded from some analysis
• Options:
– Up to 3 discrete missing values
– A range of missing values plus one discrete missing value
 Columns and Align

• Column and alignment don't have any statistical relevance.

Columns sets the amount of space reserved to display the
contents of the variable in Data View; generally the default
value is adequate.

Align sets whether the contents of the variable appear on the

left, centre or right of the cell in Data View
• Numeric variables are right-hand justified by default and
string variables left-hand justified by default; the defaults
are generally adequate
 Measure
• Levels of measurement:
– Nominal
– Ordinal
– Scale
• In SPSS, interval and ratio are designated together as Scale
• The categorical variable comes into two formats as
Nominal variables and Ordinal variables.
– Nominal variables are those variables that come in the format of
perfect categories or mutually exclusive categories. Example
gender.
– Ordinal scale refers to the scale in which the variables can be
categorized, but they can also be ranked order. Example
socioeconomic status.
 Data View
• Rows represent cases or observations, that is, the
objects on which data have been collected:
– For example, rows represent the contents of a single case
information on an individual
• Columns represent variables or characteristics of the
object of interest:
– For example, each column contains the answers to the
questions on the treatment data collection form: age,
gender, primary drug of use, etc.
The Data View window
 The data entry process

• Define your variables in Variable View

• Enter the data, the values of the variables,
in Data View
 Saving the file

• The file must always be saved in order to save the

work that has been done to date:
– File/Save
– Move to the target directory
– Enter a file name
– Save
 Summary
•• Data
Variable
Editor definition
– Data
NameView
– Type
Variable View
– Width
• File/Save
– Decimals
– Label
– Values
– Missing
– Columns
– Align
– Measure
 1.DESCRIBING DATA
1.Frequencies, Proportions, Means and SD Describing categorical variables

Analyze -­-­-­-­-­>
‐ ‐ ‐ ‐ ‐ Descriptive Statistics
Choose the variable(s) you want to describe
Describing numerical variables

Analyze -­-­-­-­>
‐ ‐ ‐ ‐ Descriptive Statistics
-­-­-­-­-­>
‐‐‐‐‐
Descriptive
Choose the variable(s) you want to
describe
Means & SD
 Medians Range & Interquartile ranges
Analyze -­-­-­>
‐ ‐ ‐ Descriptive Statistics -­-­-­>
‐ ‐ ‐ Explore -­-­>
‐ ‐ Choose for dependent list

Plots -­-­>
‐ ‐ Histogram (under Descriptive) & Normality plots with tests
 1.Medians Range & Interquartile ranges

Analyze -­-­-­>
‐ ‐ ‐ Descriptive Statistics -­-­-­>
‐ ‐ ‐ Explore -­-­>
‐ ‐ Choose for dependent list

Plots -­-­>
‐ ‐ Histogram (under Descriptive) & Normality plots with tests
 SUMMRY

• SPSS is a powerful software for Data entry

• Data cleaning and management Data analysis.
• Variable view window is used to create data structure
before data entry; it is also used to view and manage
the structure after data entry.
• Data view is to view and manage and analyze data
Variable names are short (<11 characters) but var.
labels can be as long as 252 chars.
• Categorical variables are coded 1, 2, 3… etc. but these
values are labelled for better understanding.
Thank You