[...]... option Apply Data Dictionary This option is useful when you are working with a new data file which has some variables in common with an existing data file To save you the trouble of applying labels, missing values, and formats to these variables (see Data entry in 14 Data handling Dialog box 14 Table 1 Data handling 15 Chapter 1), locate the existing data file using apply data dictionary, and click OK SPSS. .. be able to understand and use the most important parts of an output Furthermore, it is important for a student to be able to present the results in a dissertation or a poster in a technically appropriate manner In addition, a student may want to create tables and charts which will illustrate the results of statistical tests Lastly, a student should be in a position to rearrange and reorganise a data... different variables can be separated (delimited) in the original file by a specific character such as a comma, a space, or a tab In such a case, the variables have the same order (variable 1 followed by variable 2, etc.) for all cases (participants), but they are not necessarily in the same column location (e.g., variable 1 of case 2 may not be located straight under variable 1 of case 1) When each variable... which are the most important and appropriate to their basic level of statistical understanding The book describes each SPSS menu separately In each menu, most of the options are explained and examples are given The book is organised in five chapters Chapter 1 presents a brief introduction of SPSS Chapter 2 explains how data can be organised and rearranged to facilitate statistical analysis Chapter... indicate that the new file matches a predefined format (see step 1, Dialog box 8) 12 Data handling Dialog box 11 Dialog box 12 Data handling 13 Dialog box 13 If you are an experienced SPSS user, you may want to paste the commands onto the Syntax window Otherwise, select No Click Finish, and the text data file will be imported into SPSS Save the new file as a SPSS data file (*.sav) Save As Data files can be... for example, to separate males and females, or to rank athletes according to their strength levels SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) can meet these requirements SPSS is a comprehensive statistical programme with a wide 2 Introduction variety of options and statistical analyses available for social scientists It includes a number of statistical tests which can be used to describe data... chart Select Edit or Open to open new menus with additional options View Value Labels If you tick Value Labels, you will be able to see the labels that you have assigned to the values of a variable For example, for the ‘gender’ variable you may have used the value 1 to label females, and the value 2 to label males Expand/Collapse These options are available only in an Output window With these you can... each variable in the data file Note that, whereas in the Data View variables are represented in columns, in Variable View variables are represented in rows In the Name column you can give a short name to a new variable in the data file Note that the name of a variable should be normally no more than eight characters long In the Type column you can specify the type of a variable Click on a cell and a. .. Text Data Use this option to open ASCII or text data files These are very basic types of data files and are often used as a ‘common currency’ to exchange data files 8 Data handling Dialog box 5 Dialog box 6 between different software Data files from software not supported by SPSS (e.g., Statistica) have to be saved as text files in the original software, so that SPSS will be able to read them Similarly,... tab, tick the box Display Commands in the Log SPSS will then present in the Output menu the commands 20 Data handling for any analysis that you will subsequently carry out The commands can be copied and pasted onto a Syntax file In a future session, you can re-run the whole analysis from the Syntax file using the pasted commands In this way you avoid saving the output file and all its tables and charts, . statistical tests. Lastly, a student should be in a position to rearrange and reorganise a data file, for example, to separate males and females, or to. introduction of SPSS. Chapter 2 explains how data can be organised and rearranged to facilitate statist ical analysis. Chapter 3 presents a number of statistical tests