String variables do not have any decimal place. The default is 2 but you can increase according to your preference. This specifies the number of decimal spaces the variable should have. The default is 8, however, SPSS does not limit the characteristics to the number specified and one can have more characters in the variable. The width of a variable specifies how many characters a variable should have. String variables can be represented by letters as well as numbers and include names of respondents, the day the questionnaire was administered etc.įor each variable, specify the accurate type by clicking on the drop-down menu on the right-hand corner, as shown below: Numeric variables are those on which numeric operations can be performed e.g calculating mean, median and statistical tests, whereas for string variables it is not possible to perform numeric operations. Dates are also used in some questionnaires. There are 9 types of variables in SPSS but the most common are numeric and string. You cannot use the same name for two different variables, each name should be unique. The variable names must begin with a letter, not number.
SPSS does not allow variable names with special characters such as %, &, $ etc. If you want to combine two or more words you can use underscore or start each word with a capital letter without any spacing, e.g Education_level or EducationLevel. SPSS does not allow spacing in variable names. When naming variables, keep in mind the following conditions: Characteristics of variables in variable view Name The columns in the variable view represent the properties/characteristics of the variables. To code data in SPSS, first open the variable view. There are two approaches to coding data in SPSS: before data entry or after data entry. The variable view on the other hand shows all the variables in the dataset and their properties. Each column is a unique variable, and each row is a unique observation. The data view has two parts: the columns which show the variables in the dataset, and the rows which show the observations in the dataset. It will then be activated when data is entered. If there is no data, the data view sheet will be greyed out. It is also where the raw data is stored once it is entered.
When you open SPSS, the following window will appear with two views: the data view and the variables view.ĭata view is where raw data entry takes place.
Sample-questionnaire-1 Download SPSS interface