SPSS Statistics Workbook For Dummies

Chapter 4

Putting the Transform Menu to Work

IN THIS CHAPTER

Counting values within cases

Recoding variables

Using visual binning

After your data is in SPSS, you may find that it contains errors or isn’t organized appropriately. A way to fix these problems is to make modifications to the data so that the values are easier to work with and read. This chapter contains some methods you can use to modify your data so that you can better answer your research questions.

Counting Case Occurrences

If your data keeps track of similar multiple occurrences, such as who has visited various countries or how several satisfaction questions were answered, you can generate a count of the occurrences for each case. You specify what value(s) cause a variable to qualify, and SPSS creates a variable and counts the number of qualifying variables from among those you choose. For example, if you have a number of expenses for each case, you could have SPSS count the number of expenses that exceed a certain threshold.

In the following example, we count when people have a lot of confidence in various institutions:

1. Choose File  ⇒    Open  ⇒    Data and load the GSS2018.sav file.

   You can download the file ...