Data Formatting Instructions

The excel file “DataFormattingSample” provides an example of how your data should be formatted before data analysis.

Sample Survey Questions

  1. What is your age? (check one)

___ 18-24___ 25-28___ Over 28

  1. What is your racial identity? (check one)

___ White/Caucasian___ Black/African American___ Other

  1. Using the scale below, how happy are you? (circle one)

1 – Very Sad2 – Somewhat Sad3 – Somewhat Happy4 – Very Happy

Instructions

In order to format your data for analysis follow these steps:

  1. Make sure that all of your data has been assigned a quantitative code (i.e., a number). In the sample questions above, question #3 has already been coded from 1 to 4. Those are the numbers you will enter into your data file. For questions #1 and #2, you will need to assign a value to each item. I would suggest keeping it simple and using 1 to 3 in their order from left to right.
  2. In an excel file, you should create concise, simple headings for each of your questions. Those headings will be the first row in your excel file. In the sample file I have selected “Age,” “Race,” and “Happiness” as the headings for the 3 sample questions above. Note: they should NOT include spaces or symbols, but you may use numbers. If I was developing a scale to measure happiness that was going to be measure across 4 questions, I might choose to use “Happiness1,” “Happiness2,” “Happiness3,” and “Happiness4” as my headings. But, you could also use key words from the question. This is your choice.
  3. Each participant’s data will be entered on the rows below the headings that correspond to each question on the survey. This means that each participant’s survey is a row. Each column should contain the data from all participants on a single question. See the sample file.
  4. Once you have entered all data, simply save the file and bring it with you to class on Monday or to the computer lab when you are ready to watch the videos and do your analysis. The first video in Course Den will demonstrate how to open an excel file in SPSS.
  5. NOTE: In the sample data file there are 3 columns and 10 rows. The 3 columns correspond to the 3 sample questions on this sheet. The 10 rows are simply examples of what responses would look like from 10 participants. Your file will have the same # of columns as questions on your survey; and the same # of rows as participants (minimum of 30).