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♪ [music playing-- no dialogue] ♪♪.
When SPSS first opens, the default view is
the Data View tab.
Before entering raw data it's necessary to start
in the Variable View tab.
Variables need to be defined before raw data can be entered.
To get to the Variable View, click the Variable View tab
in the lower left corner of the screen.
For this example, I will define variables for a fictitious study
that looks at the relationship of gender, age, and GPA
on whether or not the respondent shops online.
To define my first variable, I will click in the first cell
under name and type gender, then hit enter.
Immediately you'll see some default values fill in the row.
Also, SPSS has some special requirements for variable names.
They need to be short and precise.
Unfortunately, SPSS doesn't allow variable names to begin
with a number or include any special characters
like an ampersand, asterisk, or dollar sign.
Since the name column has these limitations, the label column
can be used to type a full description
of the variable name.
In fact, it's a good idea to get in the habit of being
descriptive by identifying labels with each variable.
Precise labels will help you down the road in interpreting
data in SPSS output.
They can also be handy when entering data.
I'll show you an example of that in a little bit.
Returning to our example, for the variable gender,
I'll assign the label Student Gender.
The second variable is age.
In the second cell under the name column, I'll type age
and hit Enter.
Default values fill in the row.
The descriptive label I'll give to the variable age
will be Student Age.
The third variable in my study is GPA.
In the third cell under the name column I'll type GPA
and hit Enter.
Once again, default values fill in the row.
The descriptive label I'll give to the variable GPA
will be Student GPA.
The fourth and final variable in my study is whether or not
the respondent shops online.
In the fourth cell under the name column, I'll type S-online
and hit Enter.
Default values fill in the row.
The descriptive label I'll give to this variable will be
"Do you shop online?"
Now, because the variables gender and S-online have more
than one possible response I'll need to assign values to those
two particular variables.
I'll slide my mouse over to the values column and making sure
I'm in the gender row, and click on the word None.
What becomes visible in this cell is dot-dot-dot,
also known as an ellipsis.
Click on the dot-dot-dot and a Values Window opens.
When I type in the raw data on the Data View tab,
SPSS needs numeric values to run calculations.
For this reason, I'll need to numerically code
the two possible answers to the variable gender.
So, I'll assign the number one to mean male.
Then click, Add.
Next, I'll assign the number two to mean female.
Then click, Add.
When I'm finished, I click Okay and you'll see the information
I just typed was added to the values cell.
If I ever need to get back into this area to remind myself
of the values I assigned or to make edits I can simply click
on the dot-dot-dot and make my changes.
The second variable that needs assigned values is S-online.
Again, I'll slide my mouse over to the values column and making
sure I'm in the S-online row and click the word None.
Next, I'll click on the dot-dot-dot.
I'll assign the number one to mean yes.
Then click, Add.
I'll assign the number two to mean no.
Then click, Add.
When I'm finished I click Okay.
At this point, I have defined all the variables
in this fictitious study so I'm ready to type in raw data.
To type in data I'll need to switch over to Data View
by clicking on this Data View tab in the lower left corner
of the workspace.
In Data View, rows represent people, respondents,
or observations and columns represent the different
variables in the study.
Once variables are defined, their names appear
as column headers as they do here in Data View.
Since we just defined the variable gender, age, GPA,
and if they shop online, those columns are now
appropriately titled in the Data View.
Next, I'll enter fictitious data.
In this study I'll pretend I had 10 respondents.
The first respondent was male so I'll type in the number one
under gender.
He reported his age as 20 and a 3.5 GPA, and reported
that he does not shop online so I'll enter a two.
Next, I'll go ahead and fill in fictitious data for nine
more respondents.
Okay, now all my data has been entered.
A couple tips I want to mention.
Remember the restrictions I mentioned when naming
your variables when we were in the Variable View?
The variable names need to be short and precise.
They can't begin with a number or include any special
characters such as an ampersand, asterisk, or dollar sign.
Remember, I mentioned if you need to explain your
variable name further to use the label column?
Well, if you need more explanation of a variable name
while you're typing in data in the Data View, hover your mouse
over the variable name and a box will appear with the
label information you typed in while defining the label.
This is one way variable labels come in handy.
A second tip worth mentioning is the Value Labels button
in the toolbar.
The button looks like a price tag and it's right here.
Clicking the Value Label button while you are in Data View
toggles between two views...one that displays the coded numbers
that were entered and one that displays how the coded numbers
are defined.
Right now we are viewing the coded numbers.
If I click on the Value Label button, the one's and two's
change to male or female for Gender and yes or no
for shop online according to how I defined those numbers
in the Variable View.
If I click on the Value Label again, it shows
the coded numbers.
At this point all the data is entered so all that is left
to do is save your file.
♪ [music playing-- no dialogue] ♪♪.