Are you in a statistics class and need to learn how to input data? Or are you working on your own project but, Whoops, you’re not sure how to use SPSS? Well, you’ve come to the right place! This article will tell you everything, and I mean everything, about that elusive “Variable Tab” in the SPSS spreadsheet. Why do you need to know? Because it will come up, over and over again if you are in any field from biology to marketing to statistics. Enjoy!

As a side note, this tutorial is best understood when accompanied by SPSS software. You may download a free 30-day trial of SPSS 17.0.

How to enter data into SPSS in 16 helpful steps:

1) Open a new SPSS file by selecting ‘Type in data’ under the ‘What would you like to do?’ box.

2) Click on Variable View at the bottom of the document.

3) Type in the name of the first variable you want displayed under the column ‘Name’ and press enter.

Note: Each variable name may be of any length.

All variable names must begin with a letter. After that, they may include any letter, number, a period and/or the symbols @, #, _, or $. The name may not end in a period.

DR, Dr and dr are all the same to SPSS. SPSS does not allow for duplicate variable names.

4) All cells for that row will now be filled in except the one corresponding to the column entitled ‘Label’.

5) The ‘Type’ column refers to whether the variable for that row should be treated as a number (numeric) or as a letter (string). To change from numeric to string or vice versa, click on the cell you want to change, click on the grey box and select numeric or string from the ‘Variable Type’ dialog box. There are other options which are beyond the scope of this tutorial.

6) The ‘Width’ column refers to the desired length of one unit of data for a given variable. This will help your accuracy when inputting data as it will prevent you from inputting extra digits for a given variable by mistake (i.e., inputting an id number of 9 digits instead of 8).

Create a Data File on SPSS
Create a Data File on SPSS

7) The ‘Decimals’ column refers to the number of desired decimal places to the right of the decimal point.

8) ‘Label’ allows you to write a description of the Variable at hand to help you later understand your results. For example, if your variable name is year, you may want to elaborate on that heading by typing year of graduation in this column.

9) The ‘Values’ column is very useful. It allows you to define different levels of a given variable. For example, if your variable is ‘Gender’ and you want to assign a given digit (i.e., 1) to a given gender (i.e., Female) you will first need to click on the cell then click on the grey box within that cell. A dialog box entitled ‘Value Labels’ should now appear. In the ‘Values’ cell, type the digit you want to assign a value. In the ‘Label’ cell, type the corresponding label (eg. 1 = Female). Click Add. Do the same for all other labels (eg. 2 = Male). Click OK when done. This feature will help you immensely when reading your Output results.

10) The default option under the ‘Missing’ column is None. If you do have user-missing values, i.e. missing values which you have defined (read ahead), you will want to click on the cell underneath the ‘Missing’ column for the appropriate variable and click on the grey box. A ‘Missing Values’ box will open. Select ‘Discrete missing values’ and type the values that you want SPSS to identify as a missing value. For example, If someone fails to identify their gender on a survey. Instead of leaving the cell blank, you may want to assign it a particular number (i.e., 777). One reason you may want to do this is to distinguish their response from someone who circled ‘Prefer not to answer’ which may have its own user-missing value (i.e., 888). In the Discrete missing values, you will then type 777 in one cell and 888 in another. SPSS will now identify 777 and 888 as a missing value for that subject.

11) ‘Columns’ allows you to define the length of the column for a given variable in the Data View tab.

12) You may ‘Align’ to the left, right or center.

13) There are three types of ‘Measures.’ A Scale measure refers to any number that has intrinsic numerical value. It is a measure with which you can perform mathematical calculations. An Ordinal measure refers to a measure that has intrinsic order to it. However, conducting typical mathematical manipulations with an ordinal measure would be nonsensical. For example, it would not make sense to say that a second runner up in a marathon did twice a bad as the winner. Nominal refers to a measure used for identification only. One example would be married or single. There is no intrinsic order to nominal measures and typical mathematical calculations are also nonsensical.

14) Do this for all your variables.

15) When you are finished, click on the Data View tab at the bottom of your SPSS window and start entering your data.

16) To copy, cut and/or paste columns you must click on Edit on the Menu bar.


Source: SPSS for Windows by Darren George & Paul Mallery