How to Transform Z-Score Variables on SPSS

When dealing with a large set of data, researchers often hope to gather one or more important statistics that can represent the dataset as a whole as well as other statistics that indicate something about individual data points. In the latter set, one such statistic, the Z-variable, helps researchers understand the rarity of an individual data point's distance from the mean. However, it is often unfeasible to compute the Z-variables for large sets of data. In comes the statistical software SPSS. SPSS allows the researcher to easily calculate Z-variables for datasets of any size.

Instructions

    • 1

      Load your data set into SPSS. In the initial SPSS menu, click on the "file" tab and select "open." A dialogue box will appear. Select the dataset you wish to work with. The data will appear in a column in SPSS's data editor. It will also have a name associated with it, listed at the top of the column. Call this name "n" for later convenience.

    • 2

      Record the mean and standard deviation for your dataset. Click the "analyze" tab at the top of SPSS. Choose "descriptive statistics," "summarize" and then "descriptives." In the resulting dialogue box, click "options." A new dialogue box will appear, showing a list of descriptive statistics. Check at least "mean" and "std. deviation." Select "continue" and then "ok" to get the descriptive statistics. Make note of the numbers for "mean" and "std. deviation." Call the values "m" and "s" for convenience in the next step.

    • 3

      Calculate the Z-scores. Choose the "transform" tab in the SPSS main menu. Click on "compute" in the resulting drop-down box. Under "target variable," type the name of the variable (the name that is listed in the top of the column in the data editor). For "numerical expression" enter the following: (n -- m)/s, where "n," "m" and "s" are the values you recorded earlier. Click "ok." SPSS will return you to the data editor, displaying the Z-variables for your original data.

Learnify Hub © www.0685.com All Rights Reserved