Data Management using SPSS Syntax

Date:

12/01/2021

Organised by:

Falcon Training / Figure It Out

Presenter:

Dr Chris Stride

Level:

Entry (no or almost no prior knowledge)

Contact:

Chris Stride 07952210227
bookings@figureitout.org.uk

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Venue: Online

Description:

Data Management using SPSS Syntax

This course is promoted by Falcon Training

NOTE - this course requires you to have your own PC or laptop with SPSS installed - any of versions v21 onwards will do.

Who is the course aimed at?
This course is aimed at a very wide audience, namely anyone who ever has to handle data using SPSS!

There are very few grey areas in managing data - your data is either accurate or it is not. And if it is not, then it is more than likely that the results from your analysis of it will be incorrect too. Learn to improve your data managment skills and hence create more time for the more interesting parts of a study i.e. the analysis of it, safe in the knowledge that you are working from an accurate, fully documented data set.

Using the SPSS syntax language to import, organise and manipulate your data is substantially more efficient time-wise than using the menus, and has the dual advantages of simple repeatability and of providing an audit trail for your work. Course examples and data sets will largely come from survey data, but the skills learned are applicable and widely transferable to an incredibly wide variety of scenarios.

Course level:
Whilst some previous experience of using SPSS via the menus (i.e. point and click) is expected, no previous experience in using the SPSS syntax language is required.

Course content and aims:
The course will cover the following topics:

  • Starting with syntax - why use SPSS syntax, the basics of writing and running syntax; determining when your command runs
  • Some simple SPSS commands - opening and saving files, describing data via frequencies, descriptives and crosstabs
  • Reading data into SPSS from other formats - handling text format, Excel format data,
  • Defining and documenting data, variable names, variable labels, value labels, missing value, formatting data
  • Creating new variables - recoding, computing, count, performing calculations on subsets via DO IF - END IF, making multiple calculations using DO REPEAT loops
  • Manipulating cases - selecting subsets of data for analysis, filtering files, splitting files, sorting cases
  • Manipulating files - aggregating files, restructuring files, matching files, adding cases, updating files
  • Data Management: a worked example - best practice for creating and managing a complex data set

The course will take the form of a mixture of teaching via examples worked through by the trainer on real data sets which participants can follow, exercises to practice the skills just learned, and a few short demonstrations of the further capabilities of SPSS syntax. You will also receive a 50-page coursebook containing all the notes and worked examples, providing an easy reference and reminder for the techniques you have learned.

Course schedule: The course will start at 9.15am, with a lunch break from 1pm-2pm, and short coffee breaks at 11.30am and 3.30pm. It will finish at around 5.15pm, though I will be willing to stay on for a while after this and to answer questions pertinent to participants' own data sets or any other multi-level modelling queries you may have.

The teacher:
Dr Chris Stride has been using SPSS in his work as a statistician and data manager for the last 15 years. He has particular experience and expertise in teaching non-statisticians from the fields of psychology, HR, management and the social sciences. Chris is a Chartered Statistician and a member of the ASSESS (UK SPSS Users' Group) Committee; and has run almost 100 public training courses around the world, as well as for the UK SPSS users group, at national and international conferences, and on an inhouse basis for Universities and the public sector.

Cost:

£250 waged / £175 students. Further discount for booking multiple courses. Further 15% due to current online delivery, due to COVID19

Website and registration:

Region:

Greater London

Keywords:

Descriptive Research, Survey Research, Cross-Sectional Research, Longitudinal Research , Data Collection (other), Data Management , Data archiving, Data management plans, Information management, Descriptive Statistics, Quantitative Software, SPSS, Data Cleaning , Data Tidying , Data manipulation , Matching , SPSS syntax , SPSS code

Related publications and presentations:

Descriptive Research
Survey Research
Cross-Sectional Research
Longitudinal Research
Data Collection (other)
Data Management
Data archiving
Data management plans
Information management
Descriptive Statistics
Quantitative Software
SPSS

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