1. SPSS tips and tricks for the initiated

2. Ways of working Use menus to run commands
Use menus, paste commands, run
Write commands, run
Your main product: ”The Syntax File” !!
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3. Viewer Contains all output Show/hide or delete elements
Double-click to edit element
Double-click on chart to start Chart Editor
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4. Select and Filter Select if (age>50). Compute ff=(age>50).
Filter by ff. …
Filter off.
Only one filter active at the time
Temporary
Select if (age>50).
command.
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5. Compute and If If (age<=50) old=0. If (age>50) old=1.
Compute old=(age>50).
Comp oldMale=0.
If (age>50 and sex=1)
oldMale=1.
Compute oldMale=
(age>50 and sex=1).
Compute id=$casenum.
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6. Recode recode age (missing=sysmis) (lowest thru 29=1)
(30 thru 39=2) (40 thru highest=3) into ageGr3. or
comp ageGr3=1+(age>=30) +(age>=40).
variable label ageGr3 ’Age in 3 groups’.
value label ageGr3 1’29 years’ 2’30-39 years’ 3’40 years’.
Missing=sysmis must be first.
Rank age /ntiles(3) into ageGr3.
Examine age by ageGr3 /plot=none.
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7. Missing System missing User missing Selection
Empty values are marked ”.” and called sysmis
User missing
Set to missing: missing age (999).
Set to value: missing age ().
Selection
Remove sysmis: select if (not sysmis(age))
Remove all missing: select if (not missing(age))
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8. Set to missing Make new variable Use the miss variable compute miss=1.
recode miss (1=sysmis).
Use the miss variable
If (age>120) age=miss.
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9. Functions that ignore missing
Sum function
compute s1=a1+a2+a3.
compute s1=Sum(a1,a2,a3).
compute s1=Sum.2(a1,a2,a3).
Function list
Sum, Product, Min, Max, Mean
Sum.2: evaluate if at least 2 variables have values
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10. Execute. Example Edit, Options, Data,
Calculate values immediately / before used
Example
compute a=1.
execute.
compute b=a+1.
freq b.
Transformations pending
Transformations pending
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11. Long and wide data
Data, Restructure
Long:
Wide:
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12. Variable order Variable order and display Save workfile
Edit, Options, General,
Alphabetical / File
Labels / Names
Save workfile
save outfile= ’h:\Data\file1.sav’ /Keep=id age sex educ…
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