Tips – SPSS codebook

What is the first you do when you get a new SPSS data file?

You maybe have a look in the variable view, to get all information about variable name, labels, missing value – the meta data.

But did you know about the codebook?

You will get information about all the variable you choose, in the output window – like a report.

Here are some screen dumps from the program when you choose this command:

“Variables tab“: Choose the variables you want information about, I chosed almost everyone but two.

If you want you can also change the default settings in the tabs named “Output” and “Statistics”:

“Output tab” –  Here is the variable information you want to see:

“Statistics tab” – Here is the overview statistics you want to get:

Results:

As you see below, you will get information about the coding for categorical variables – value labels, you get a short overview so for example “Gender” is Nominal with format F1 (numeric 1 character and 0 decimals),  coded as 1 for Male and 2 for Female, with the distribution 65.7% males and 34.3%  females.

And then we have Age that also is numeric but with measurment “Scale” and therefor we get mean value and standard deviation as the overview statistics. You also see the variable label: “Age of employee” (No codings with value labes are needed in scale variables.)

Thanks for watching!

Gunilla