SPSS for newbies Name your variables by completing "Name" and "Labels"

hi everyone Phil from Statistics
mentor.com here helping you with SPSS
now one of the first things we do when
we begin the analysis is to set up our
variables recall that we have the two
tabs one to the data view which is just
looks like Excel it's where the numbers
go and one for variable view which
describes the variable of each entry in
the columns so we click on variable view
now we're going to discuss in this video
are the name and label because I find
that students get confused between the
two now for each variable we have to
give it a name and also label this word
where the words go these are words
describe what your variables are now
thing is this the name here is for your
reference when you're running your
analysis and is not displayed in the
output the actual word data display
comes in the label so this is where a
full account of the description of the
variable is entered okay in short n is
for like the nickname n for nickname
nicknames are short L for long
description this is where the lengthy
description goes with the description
you want to appear in the output let's
say we have a variable education now
there are some limits on this name so
let's let's just try a few things here
say can we enter the word education
level education level ah I get message
variable name contains a legal character
now this is because under name we are
not allowed spaces so like ABC as soon
as it's accepted if accepted all the
other entries suddenly appear let's
remove that I click on one and delete
one
and delete the whole thing one and
delete clear the whole thing okay let's
try something else then so it doesn't
like spaces so if we have how about to
educate to education I want to begin
with a one-hour cap or the number two
again this says an error message
variable contains an illegal first
character now that is because we are not
allowed numbers at the start but edge
you can undo a number would be accepted
so the restrictions and the name here is
that mustn't be any spaces and also
first character must not be it must be a
letter basically right so can't be a
number or other strange thing star
edrick one not accepted either got to
begin with a letter of the alphabet
right so if you're convenience where I'm
at Nick end for nickname should be kept
short I like to keep it real short three
or whether three if possible label this
is where the full description can come
this is where whatever you enter here
will come into your output so let's
describe it education level all right so
here that there's less restrictions
labels you could let's see you could
even begin with two education you can
begin with a number and you can have
spaces we want education
level okay see we have now education
let's just enter some fictitious data
like that right I'll show you now so
we're a Jew education level comes into
this let's say want to look at the
script of stats of the frequency tables
looking here it says education level so
that is our label and then in the
brackets is our name the nickname and
move it into the variable box and I'll
just say okay just want to look at some
output here so notice I've got two boxes
in the output and they're referred to as
the education level not which is the
label not educational level right so
this is what you want we want people to
see now before finishing let's note this
again let's go back to descriptive
frequencies we set this thing right it's
often the case I help students who have
questionnaire data and they put loads of
variables coming down here and their
labels could be quite lengthy if it's
quite lengthy you can see that this is
going to run off the box so it gets all
bit Jack you know it gets it gets really
really clumsy it's just a massive
massive long longer phrases here and
it's hard to find what you want now if
we know what our name is and we know
what because you know we've set up the
name nickname for our reference you I
think it's a lot more convenient if we
can just reset SPSS so it only displays
the nickname rather than both the label
and the nickname you know there's just
too much then especially if your label
is too long as I said this is going to
look really clumsy how you can do that I
want to kind of display only the
nickname for my analysis except for when
I get the actual output education want
the label
how you do that is you go into edit
options takes bit of time here what's it
doing okay we've got Papa box now under
the general tab variable lists we want
it to display our name nickname alright
and then we say okay alright now let's
try that again to analyze you see what's
changed descriptive stats frequencies
look at that now entry here is just this
what I mean just the nickname the name
so it's less clumsy and if I've got
loads and tons of stuff coming down here
got tons of variable then it's much more
manageable to find that you know it's
quicker to find what we want alright if
I shift this over again to the other
side and the pressure okay you can see
that the output has not changed it's
still delivered to us the labels not to
the nickname so all I've done is just to
got SPSS display in the intermediary
steps of the analysis to get the display
only the nickname the name alright so
that's a useful tip actually great so
that's all