How to enter data in SPSS

1.1 Introduction of SPSS

1.2 Data Entry

1.3 Data Cleaning using SPSS

Statistical Software Packages Most Commonly Cited in the

NEJM and JAMA between 1998 and 2002
302

SAS
87

SPSS
STATA

80
49

Epi Info

43

SUDAAN
S-PLUS

33

StatXact

18

BMDP

StatView

Statistica

8
0

100

200

300

400

Number of articles software was sited

2

Before you perform analysis in SPSS, lets set up the following option.
Go to Edit, Options,..

SPSS Windows has 3 windows:

Data Editor
Viewer or Draft Viewer which displays the output files
Syntax Editor, which displays syntax files
The Data Editor has two parts:
Data View window, which displays data from the active file in
spreadsheet format
Variable View window, which displays metadata or information
about the data in the active file, such as variable names and
labels, value labels, formats, and missing value indicators.
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SPSS Data View

SPSS Variable View

1.2 Data Entry into SPSS

There are 2 ways to enter data into SPSS:
1. Directly enter in to SPSS by typing in Data View
2. Enter into other database software such as Excel then import
into SPSS

Lets start with the second option, using data in Excel.

Figure 1. Data from Hell

Data from Heaven

How to move from Hell to Heaven (1):

1. Add a patient ID number
2. Delete the first row with the title of the project
3. Delete the 2 rows under the variable name.
4. Delete the 2 row between the groups.
5. Delete the row of average at the bottom.
6. Add a variable called group and code the first 10 with Drug A as 1 and the
next 10 as 2.
7. Change the variable names to less than 8 or 8 characters with no spaces,
(you can use numeric, but not starting with numeric, avoid symbols).
8. Insert 2 columns before BP as SYSBP and DIASBP. Delete the BP text column.
9. Change missing values, NA, unknown, ?, to blanks.
10. Change age of 6 months to 0.5 (years). Fix errors.
11. Code males=1 and females=2.
12. Code complications as 0 for no and 1 for yes
13. Go back to the source and complete the missing information
14. If a column was entered as a string (words), you may have to select
the column and format the cells for change it to numeric.

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General guidelines for data entry

1. Give each variable a valid name (8 characters or less with no spaces
or punctuation, beginning with a letter not a numeric number). Short,
easy to remember word names. Avoid the following variable names:
TEST, ALL, BY, EQ, GE, GT, LE, LT, NE, NOT, OR, TO, WITH. These are
used in the SPSS syntax and if they were permitted, the software would
not be able to distinguish between a command and a variable. Each
variable name must be unique; duplication is not allowed. Variable
names are not case sensitive. The names NEWVAR, NewVar, and
newvar are all considered identical.
2. Encode categorical variables. Convert letters and words to numbers.
3. Avoid mixing symbols with data. Convert them to numbers.
4. Give each patient a unique, sequential case number (ID). Place this
ID number in the first column on the left
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5. Each variable should be in its own column.

Avoid this:

Change to:

Animal
Control1
Control2
Experiment1
Experiment2

Animal
1
2
3
4

Group
0
0
1
1

* Do not combine variables in one column

* It is recommended to use 0/1 for 2 groups with 0 as a reference group.
6. All data for a project should be in one spreadsheet. Do not include
graphs or summary statistics in the spreadsheet.

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7. Each patient should be entered on a single line or row. Do not copy a

patients information to another row to perform subgroup analysis.
8. However when data are repeatedly collected over a patient, its
recommended to have patient-day observation on a simple line to ease
data management. SPSS has a nice feature to convert from the
longitudinal format to horizontal format. When the number of repeats are
few 2 or 3, horizontal format may be preferred for simplicity.
Longitudinal data entry

Horizontal data entry

Date
1/2/2005
1/3/2005
1/4/2005
3/1/2005
3/2/2005

ID SYSBP1 SYSBP2 SYSBP3

1
130
120
120
2
110
140

ID
1
1
1
2
2

SYSBP
130
120
120
110
140

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9. For yes/no questions, enter 0 for no and 1 for yes. Do not leave
blanks for no. Do not enter ?, *, or NA for missing data because
this indicates to the statistical program than the variable is a string
variable. String variables cannot be used for any arithmetic
computation.
10. Put ordinal variables into one column if they are mutually exclusive.
Avoid:

Preferred:

Pain
Mild
1
0
0

Pain
Moderate
0
1
0

Severe
0
0
1

1
2
3

11. Do not make columns wider then 8 characters, unless absolutely essential.
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Entering Date in Excel.

In Excel,go to:
Format, Cells, select Date under Category,
Choose Type for a format you like

15

Entering Time in Excel.

In Excel, go to:
Format, Cells, select Time under Category,
Choose Type for a format you like

16

Entering Date / Time in Excel.

In Excel, go to:
Format, Cells, select Time under Category,
Choose Data/Time format

17

Entering Date, Time in SPSS

In SPSS, open Variable View, Click Type for the variable you want to
Assign date format, click on Date, and select a format of your choice.

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Importing data from Excel spreadsheet into SPSS.

In SPSS, go to:
File, Open, Data
Select Type of file (for example, Excel) you want to open
Select File name you want to open

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Importing data from SPSS to Excel.

In SPSS, go to:
Data, Save as,
Select Type of file (for example, Excel) you want to save into
Give File name you want to save into

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Data merging in SPSS (1)

1. Make sure that both files are sorted by Key variable in ascending order
2. In SPSS, open Data from Hell to Heaven.sav
3. Select Add Variables under Data, Merge Files

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Data merging in SPSS (2)

4. Select the dataset you want to merge into the working file.

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Data merging in SPSS (3)

5. Click on Match cases on key variables in sorted files,
6. Click on Both files provide cases
7. Highlight ID in the excluded variables box, then click near key
Variables

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Note in Data merging in SPSS (3)

Cases must be sorted in the same order in both data files. If one or
more key variables are used to match cases, the two data files must
be sorted by ascending order of the key variable.
Variable names in the second data file that duplicate variable names in
the working data file are excluded by default because Add Variables
assumes that these variables contain duplicate information. Thus
before you merge data files, you need carefully to check two variables
with the same name. If two variables contain different information,
SPSS automatically delete variable from the file, which is being
merged into (Birthday.sav).

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1.3 Data Cleaning in SPSS

1. Re-coding existing variables
2. Creating new variables
3. Creating new variable from existing variables
4. Data labeling and formatting

25

Data cleaning in SPSS (1): Recoding existing variables (1)

We want to use numeric coding for group instead of A and B.
Old
ID
1
2
3
4

New
Group
A
A
B
B

Group
0
0
1
1

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Data cleaning in SPSS (2): Recoding existing variables (2)

From SPSS dialog box, go to:
Transform
Recode
Into Same variables

27

Data cleaning in SPSS (1): Recoding existing variables (3)

1. Select Group from the variable box into String Variables box
2. Click on Old and new Values to proceed

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Data cleaning in SPSS (1): Recoding existing variables (4)

1. Type the old value and the new value you want to convert into
2. Click on Add (To remove, or change, click on Change or Remove)
3. Type all values in the Old New box, then click Continue
4. Click OK to execute the commands.

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Data Cleaning in SPSS (2)

Creating a new variable for Diastolic blood pressure (DiasBP):
In SPSS, go to Variable View,
Then type DiasBP at the last row under
Name

Go back to Data View and directly type diastolic blood pressure to separate
from SysBP. For ease of data entry, you can move DiasBP right after
SysBP. Now also edit sysBP.

30

Data Cleaning in SPSS (3)

Computing patients age from birthday and date enrolled into the study.

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Data Cleaning in SPSS (4): Data labeling and formatting (1)

Specifying Type of Variable

HT
61.00
68.00
47.00
66.00
72.00
67.00
72.00
72.00
66.00
60.00
61.00
59.00
73.00
65.00
71.00
68.00
69.00
66.00
66.00
68.00
32

Data Cleaning in SPSS (4): Data labeling and formatting (2)

Data Labeling

33

Data Cleaning in SPSS (4): Data labeling and formatting (3)

Variable Formatting

34

Data Cleaning in SPSS (4): Data labeling and formatting (4)

Specifying missing values

35

Data Cleaning in SPSS (4): Data labeling and formatting (5)

Measurement category

36

Retrieve data property from existing files in SPSS (1)

This property is extremely handy when you need to construct a

similar database for expanded, or new group of patients. You can
save time on creating variable label, format, etc, rather you can
retrieve these information from existing files.
Now lets create a copy from Data from heaven.sav after you
delete formats and labels you just created. Save it as Data
from hell to heaven without format.sav.
Modified

Note: Before you perform this commands, make sure that Type of
variables matched between the two datasets.

37

Retrieve data property from existing files in SPSS (2)

38

Retrieve data property from existing files in SPSS (3)

39

Using syntax in SPSS:

SPSS has its great advantage in producing high level graphs and
statistical analysis by easy point-and-click operations. However,
some people may criticize SPSS for irreproducibility of analysis which
were conducted before. In fact, SPSS has a high level capacity of
programming syntax which can be saved and repeatedly operated.
Throughout the course, I will provide how to box to conduct all
analysis used in the class, here I will show how to save your
commands in syntax. I highly recommend the use of syntax for
better organization on haw has been done.

40

Using syntax in SPSS (1): Creating a new syntax file

41

Using syntax in SPSS (2): Editing a syntax file

42

Using syntax in SPSS (3): Saving a syntax file

43

Using syntax in SPSS (4): Opening an existing syntax

44

Using a syntax in SPSS (5): Example Syntax

I find syntax very handy especially when you get tired of clicking so many times!
45

Using syntax in SPSS (6):Recoding syntax from command dialog box

You can in fact use command dialog box (point and click method) as your
main tool and still save what you did with point and click into syntax.
Then later you can simply execute the syntax to repeat the analysis.
Step 1

46

Step 2: Saved syntax from the previous PASTE command

47

Using syntax in SPSS (7): Executing the syntax

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Data confidentiality

Data need to be stored in a secure locked place, need to be back-up

daily or once a week. When you send your data to a biostatistician
for further statistical analysis, delete patient name, social security
numbers, medical record numbers, actual dates (birth day,
admission date, etc)

49

Communication with a biostatistician:

Most statisticians prefer to have data submitted as SPSS format or
in the statistical software they use. An advantage of entering data
directly into a statistical package, such as SPSS is that one can
enter variable label and value labels in the file.
When communicating with a biostatistician, also describe the research
problem, study hypothesis, and the primary comparison that you are
interested in. Explain any variables that need to be controlled for.
Explain the code used for missing values.
Also answer the following questions:
What is the name of your study?
What is the purpose of your study?
What is the type of your study?
Will all subjects be included in the analysis?
Was there any matched (repeated) measures?
How will outliers be defined and handled?
Has the data been cleaned?
What is our goal and deadline for this goal?
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