Introduction
This page shows the basics of entering data into
the SPSS data editor. The SPSS data editor can be a good choice for entering your data. It has a friendly interface that resembles an Excel spreadsheet and by entering the
data directly into SPSS, you don’t need to worry about converting the data from some other
format into SPSS. For example, you might enter your data in Excel, and then try to
convert it to SPSS and find out that you used the latest version of Excel, but your
version of SPSS has trouble reading the latest Excel files.
Below is a screen snapshot of what the SPSS
data editor
looks like when you start SPSS. As you see, it does look like an Excel
spreadsheet. In this editor, the columns will represent your variables, and the rows will
represent your observations (sometimes called records, subjects or cases).
Let’s illustrate how to enter data into the SPSS
data editor using the data file below.
make mpg weight price AMC Concord 22 2930 4099 AMC Pacer 17 3350 4749 AMC Spirit 22 2640 3799 Buick Century 20 3250 4816 Buick Electra 15 4080 7827
First, you need to tell SPSS the names of your
variables. You can double click on the column heading (shown with the arrow below
for the first column). That permits you to enter information about the variable for
that column.
Below you see the dialog box that appears that allows
you to enter information about your variable. For the first variable, let’s change
the Variable Name to be make (see arrow) and click on Type
so we can tell SPSS that this is a string variable.
You can tell SPSS that make is a string
by clicking String at the left (see left arrow) and then we should
indicate that the length is up to 13 characters (see arrow at right). You can then
click Continue. When you return to the
Define Variable
dialog, click OK.
Click the column heading for column 2 and supply the
name mpg and click ok. Click the column heading
for column 3 and indicate the variable name is weight, and likewise for
column 4 indicate that the variable name is price. Once you have
done this, the Data Editor will look like below.
Once you have created the column headings (variable
names) you are ready to enter the data. It is usually best to enter the data one
observation at a time going from left to right. After you type in a entry for a
variable, you can press the Tab key to move to the next variable on the
right. Once you reach the last column (race) then use the arrow
keys to move to the first column of the next observation. Once you have entered the
sample data file, the SPSS Data Editor would look like this.
You can save your data file by clicking File
then Save. It would be wise to save your data about
every 10-15 minutes. Imagine spending three hours typing in data, and
then the power goes out, your computer stops responding, and then you have
to enter the data all over again. The data are not saved when you type
them in; rather, the file is saved when you choose File
then Save.
Problems to look out for
- If you have character data, be sure to click Type
in the Data Definition window and tell SPSS that your variable is a
string variable. SPSS will not allow you to enter character data into a variable
unless you tell it that the variable is a string variable.
For more information
- For more detailed information about the SPSS Data Editor,
see the SPSS Manual.