SPSS For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

Chapter 7. Messing with the Data After It's in There

In This Chapter

• Sorting your cases in different ways

• Combining counting and case identifying

• Recoding variable content to new values

• Grouping data in bins

After you get your raw data into SPSS, you may find that it contains errors or that it may not be organized the way you'd like. A way to alleviate these problems is by making modifications to your data configuring the values into a form that's easier to work with and to read. This chapter contains some methods you can use to modify your data without loss of information.

Sorting Cases

You can change the order of your cases (rows) so they appear in just about any order you want. You sort them by comparing the values you entered for your variables. The following example uses one of the data files that installs with SPSS. The data will be sorted with all males listed first, and with the youngest males first within that sort order. These two variables — in this example, sex and age — are known as the primary and secondary sort keys.

Note

You don't need to limit your sorting to two sort keys. You can have a third and fourth key, if necessary, but these keys come into effect only when the keys sorted before them hold identical values. In most cases, two sort keys are plenty to get what you want.

You can sort based on any variables, of any type, by simply selecting the variables as keys. For example:

1. From the main menu, choose FileOpenData and load the 1991 U.S. General Social Survey file, which ...