Arba Minch University

College of Agricultural Science

Short-term training on SPSS

By

Bizuayehu A. (M.Sc.)

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 2.Processing Data using SPSS

#. How to use variable view & data view for

data entry?
#. What are the different components of Data
View & their usage?

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 Data view & Data editor window

• The default window will have the data editor

• There are two sheets in the window:
1. Data view 2. Variable view

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 Data View window components

• The Data View window

• Click on the tab labeled Variable View
 This sheet is visible when you first open the Data Editor & this sheet
contains the data
 Rows are cases
 Columns are variables

Click

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 Variable View window

• This sheet contains information about the data set that is stored
with the dataset

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 Variable View window: Name

• Name
• Click on the ‘Name’ box.

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 Variable View window: Name…

• Name
• Provide short hand form of the variable to be entered
• Space is not allowed.
• Give each variable a valid name (8 characters or less with no
spaces or punctuation, beginning with a letter not a numeric
number).
• Short, easy to remember word names.
• Each variable name must be unique; duplication is not
allowed.
• Variable names are not case sensitive: the names NEWVAR,
NewVar, and newvar are all considered identical.
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 Variable View window: Type

• Type
• Click on the ‘type’ box. The two basic types of variables
that you will use are numeric & string.
• This column enables you to specify the type of variable.

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 Variable View window: Width

• Width
– Width allows you to determine the number of characters
– SPSS will allow to be entered for the variable

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 Variable View window: Decimals

• Decimals
– Number of decimals
– It has to be less than or equal to 16

3.14159265

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 Variable View window: Label

• Label
– You can specify the details of the variable
– You can write characters with spaces up to 256
characters

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 Variable View window: Values

• Values
– This is used & to suggest which numbers represent
which categories when the variable represents a
category

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 Defining the value labels

• Click the cell in the values column as shown below

• For the value, and the label, you can put up to 60
characters.
• After defining the values click add and then
click OK.

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 Variable View window: columns

• Columns

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 Variable View window: align

• Align is the type of align- right, left &

justified

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 Variable View window: measure

• Measure is the type of measurement sale

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 Measurement scales

#. What is measurement sale & its usage?

#. What are the different measurement
scales of data?

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 Measurement scales

 The process of assigning numbers to objects in such

away that specific properties of the objects are
truthfully represented by specific properties of the
numbers.
 Types of scales
a) Nominal
b) Ordinal
c) Scale
 Interval
 Ratio
 It’s
SPSS important factors to consider before data entry into18
 Measurement scales- Nominal scale

 Nominal scale- categorical data that comprises

of categories that can not be rank ordered;
 It’s assigned to the variables have no
numbers meaning beyond describing the
mathematical or attribute under consideration.
characteristic

 This makes it impossible to conduct standard

mathematical operations such as addition,
subtraction, division & multiplication.

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 Measurement scales- Nominal scale …

 Example: What is your gender (please tick)

 Male
 Female

 Religious

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 Measurement scales- Ordinal scale

 Ordinal scale- is data that comprises of

categories that can be rank ordered
 Variables can be ranked in relation to the amount of
the attribute possessed.
 Like nominal data, ordinal data are qualitative in
nature & do not posses mathematical properties
necessary for sophisticated statistical analyses.

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 Measurement scales- Ordinal scale…

 Example
1. How is your satisfaction with the customers service of
the staff
1. Excellent
2. Good
3. Bad
4. Very bad

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 Measurement scales- Ratio scale

 Ratio scale measurement is like interval scale

measurement, but this one has an absolute zero point,
which means that all mathematical operations are
possible.
 Ratio data measured on a continuous scale &
does have a zero point
 Example:
 Age

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 Measurement scales- interval scale

 Interval scale measured on continuous scale

& has no true zero point
 It measured data on continuous scale
can have no true zero point
 It’s without a zero point time.
 Example: Time moves along a continuous
measure – minute or second & so on

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 Choice of scales in SPSS

 The default is scale, which refers to

an
interval or
 Choose ratio level
nominal forof measurementdata
ordinal if categorical data& ranking
your or
ordered values; involve

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 Defining Variables: Data coding & coding the
questionnaire

 Translate the questionnaire into codes & enter in

SPSS
 The questions in the questionnaire are mapped into
variables in SPSS
 Important factors to consider before data entry into
SPSS
 Question response format
 Scale characteristics
 Level of measurement
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 Defining Variables: Data coding & coding the
questionnaire …

 In SPSS, open variable view, define

the questioner (Exercise-I)

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 Data Entry into SPSS

 There are 2 ways to enter data into SPSS:

1. Directly enter into SPSS by typing in Data View
2. Enter into other database software such as
Excel then import into SPSS
 Let’s start with the 1st option, using data view
& insert data.

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 Entering Variable Information in the "Variable View"

 Exercise-I
 In SPSS, open Data View, insert data for 30
interviewer randomly.

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 Importing data from Excel spreadsheet
into SPSS.
 In SPSS, go to:
 File, Open, Data
 Select Type of file (for example, Excel) you want to open
 Select File name you want to open

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 Exercise

1. Try to understand all components & their usage of

Data View Window in SPSS?
2. Are the following nominal, ordinal, interval or ratio
data?
a. Religion
b. Weight
c. Height
d. Income of the household
e. Marital status
f. Postal code
C. Celsius
D. Kelvin
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