ENTERING VARIABLE AND DATA IN TO SPSS

INPUTTING THE VARIABLES IN TO SPSS

Before any data analysis can be performed, you have to do a bit of programming in SPSS so that it can understand your research requirements, variables of interest, data nature and so on.Therefore, lets review some common issues first.
A variable is anything which vary from one unit of analysis to another. Variables are of three main type i.e. nominal, ordinal, and scale

Nominal variable is used when data is of only qualitative/ identification purpose e.g. gender, nationality, religion etc.
Ordinal variable is used when there is some order in data e.g. age, income, salary etc.
Scale is used when data is quantitative in nature. Most of the social sciences research use Likert scale which can also be categorized as Scale data.
when possible, we use the scale data preferably, as it allows us to perform more advanced statistical test while the test performed on nominal data are different from those of performed on scale data.

We start with an example. Lets say you want to enter the following variables/questions in your SPSS.

1. Gender.
2. Age
3. Income
4. Brand Loyalty

Before we put the following variables, lets assume that you have developed the following options for the above mentioned questions which can be conveniently entered in SPSS.
1. Gender
a. Male
b. Female
c. Others

2. Age
a. 18-25,
b.25.1-35
c.35.1-45
d.45 and above

3. Income
a. $1000 and less
b. $1001-5000
c.$5001-10000
d. Above 10000

4. Brand Loyalty
a. Very low
b. Low
c. Neutral
d. High
e. Very High

5. Service Quality
a. Very Poor
b. Poor
c. Neutral
d. Good
e. Very Good

Now lets enter the above mentioned variables along with their options in the SPSS. Start SPSS and come to the Variable View window (See Picture 1)

Once you have arrived in SPSS Variable view, now you are in position to start entering Variables and their respective options in SPSS. In name column, write the name of the question (Keep in mind that SPSS dont allow space), so write a small or short form of question. You can write the full description or name of the variables along with space in the fifth column name Label. If you want to change the nature of the data, then you can click on the second column-select option such as string for alphabet characters, or date for date related data. In Values column, You can enter the answer options one by one by the following manner (See Picture 2 ).

Put 1 in Value and Male in Label and press enter. Similarly, put 2 for second option (Female), 3 for third option (Others). 

This way you can put all the andr options one by one. After you have entered all the variables, your screen should looks like the following

Now if you click on the 'Data View' button at the bottom of screen, you will be able to see the Gender name in the top of the column.

Now you are in position to start entering the data as per the coding you assigned. One row in the data view represents the data of one unit so for example one person filled the form as Male, 18-25 years of age, 1001-3000 $ income, Neutral brand loyalty, and High Service Quality. You will enter the following codes
1= Male
1=18-25 Years of age
2=1001-3000 $ income
3= Neutral
5= High Service Quality

Again remember that in Data View, one row represents the responses of all the questions/variables for only one unit/person/respondent. For next unit/person/respondent, you will input coded data in second row. Therefore, the number of rows should always be equal to the number of unit/person/respondent so for example in case of 50 unit/person/respondents you will have 50 rows filled in this 'Data View' screen.

A SPSS sample file related to the above example is given here

SPSS Practice File 1

For other topics or next stages of SPSS, see my next posts.

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