Working with Variables in SPSS

In SPSS, you need to define your variables, which occurs in the Variables View. To access the Variable View you need to click the Variables View tab as shown below:

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Here you can adjust the properties of each of your variables under 10 categories - Name, Type, Width, Decimals, Label, Values, Missing, Columns, Align and Measure.

To change the name of a column (variable) in the Data View sheet, click in the appropriate cell and type in the new name. The names in this column must not start with a number. They also cannot contain special characters such as / * $, space etc. You will be given an error message if your name is in illegal format.

To define the type of data contained in the column (e.g. characters, strings, numbers etc.) click on the appropriate row in the Type column.

You can alter the number of digits displayed in the column by clicking in the appropriate Width cell.

You can alter the number of digits after the decimal place by clicking in the appropriate Width cell.

Click on the appropriate cell in the Labels column to give a long description which will help you to understand the variable you are referring to.

You can give a text label for category codes by clicking on the appropriate cell in the column values. Default is None.

First click on the "None" cell box and then on the  button as show in the diagram below:

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Enter the numeric code value 1 in the text box for Value:. This value corresponds to the group representing "males", so enter "males" in the Label: box.

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Click on the button.

Repeat the above entering "2" in the Value: box and "female" in the Label: box and click on the button.

You will be presented with an the following screen:

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Click on the button.

To define different type of missing vale code click on the appropriate cell in the Missing column.

The width of column in the data view sheet can be altered by clicking in the appropriate Column cell.

To align the text or numbers in Data View, click in the appropriate Align cell.

To label the scale of data, click in the appropriate Measure cell. In our example, we need to select the "Nominal" value.

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You can now see the results of your labelling by clicking the button in the Data Editor View as shown below:

Published with written permission from SPSS Inc, an IBM Company.