Irfan Ahmed, PhD

                     Descriptive Statistics

Compute The Compute procedure allows the analyst to perform mathematical operations on variables. This can be useful for several reasons. You might want to transform a variable to make its distribution more normal, or to make its relationship to another variable more linear. You also might want to create a variable that represents the average of other variables in the data set. You should use Compute whenever you want to assign the value of one variable to be a mathematical function of other variables in the data set. To perform this type of a transformation . Choose Transform then Goto Compute. . Type the name of the new variable in the target variable box. If you .   type in the name of a variable that already exists, the transformed values will replace the existing values. . Type the formula representing what the value of the target variable should be in the numeric expression box. . Click the OK button . The screen that opens up when you choose the Compute procedure has thr...

DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS Analyses often begin by examining basic descriptive-level information about data. The most common and useful descriptive statistics are Mean Median Mode Frequency Quartiles Sum Variance Standard deviation Minimum/Maximum Range Note: All of these are appropriate for continuous variables, and frequency and mode are also appropriate for categorical variables. If you just want to obtain the mean and standard deviation for a set of variables Choose Analyze   then goto Descriptive Statistics then goto Descriptives. Move the variables of interest to the Variable(s) box. Click the OK button. If you want to obtain any other statistics Choose Analyze then goto Descriptive Statistics then goto Frequencies. Move the variables of interest to the Variable(s) box Click the Statistics button. Check the boxes next to the statistics you want. Click the Continue button. Click the OK button.