Spss

[JeepsR4Mud]

I'm currently working on my doctoral dissertation, and will have to use SPSS.

I'm new to SPSS and after several FRUSTRATING experiences, went to the "HELP" center at school.

Their recommendation was to do all data entry in Access, then export to SPSS.

So far I've found this method to be wonderful. I've done all my clean-up in Access, and was able to have several calculated fields that detected data entry errors immediately.

My dissertation involves marriage. My data involves dates, so I had a calculated field for the husband's age at marriage and birth of first child. If I got 126, for example, I knew I probably hit 1866 for the year instead of 1966.

I mentioned to the people at work, who use SPSS, that Ohio State told me to do data entry in Access, they were horrified. But, mostly because, as near as I can determine, they have always been taught to do the data entry in SPSS, and because they are unsure how to convert from Access in to SPSS. My advisor is also very anti-Access, and I know it is because he has no Access knowledge.

I just wonded if anyone else had opinions on this topic.

Personally, I found Access to be much easier for the data entry. If I corrected a mistake in one field, ALL fields that relied on that field for a calculation were automatically corrected, unlike SPSS.

 

[Treason]

I don't know what SPSS is.. Am I am not too sure what your question is either. Is the Question, how to convert from Access to SPSS?

 

[Thedon123]

what are you going to do with spss. it is the same as excel so it will also automatically change calculated fields if one changes

 

[JeepsR4Mud]

SPSS is a statistical analysis program, generally used in the social sciences.

I have Ver. 11.0, we can purchase it through school for $17 due to their site license).

I've never had it correct things automatically, like Excel. I've always had to re-run the syntax for EACH field that referred to the corrected field.

I just wondered if people on this board perefer Access for data entry, or use SPSS.

I also received an e-mail advertising a product that is an add-in for Access. Supposedly it does statistical analysis. It was $495. Does anyone ahve any experience with the add-in statistical programs for Access? Do you know how they compare to SPSS?

Thanks.

Gayle Ann

 

[Thedon123]

so do want to convert access to spss. is that what you are trying to do.

 

[JeepsR4Mud]

Yes.

I know how to convert it, and I don't mind converting it. It isn't that difficult.

I just wondered if other people prefer Access for the data entry, and SPSS for the analysis.

 

[StephenD]

Hi there Jeeps,

I've used both SPSS and Access and you can do data entry in access and import it into SPSS or do the data entry striaght into SPSS. I reckon it's probably easiest to do the data entry striaght into SPSS because if you are importing from Access you have to make sure the variables are defined in the right way-(numeric., string) and the type of measure-ordinal, scale etc.
You also have to make sure the names and labels are correct-I think the names of variables cannot exceed eight characters and also define how any missing values are treated.
You are right that it doesn't automatically calculate fields. What you would do is enter all data for all the records, then do calcualted fields using the Transform, Compute comand.

Regards,

StephenD