A Step by Step Guide for SPSS and Exercise Studies

4 Introduction
Data Entry
Each row in a data file should represent a different study participant and each
column should correspond to a different measure (e.g., date of birth, gender,
type of activity, enjoyment of main sport, etc.) of a particular participant.
Therefore, you should enter new data horizontally until all measures of the first
participant have been inserted. Then you can go to the second row and enter the
data for the second participant, etc.
It is very important that you label all variables and give details about their
format. Click the Variable View tab at the bottom of Figure 5. Variable View is
not available in SPSS 9 or in any earlier versions (use the Define Variable option
in the Data menu instead). In Variable View, ten different columns appear which
provide information regarding the characteristics of each variable in the data file.
Note that, whereas in the Data View variables are represented in columns, in
Variable View variables are represented in rows. In the Name column you can
give a short name to a new variable in the data file. Note that the name of a
variable should be normally no more than eight characters long. In the Type
column you can specify the type of a variable. Click on a cell and a new button
will appear . Click on this button and you will be presented with Dialog box
2. Select the String option if a variable is nominal (i.e., if it has letters instead of
numbers, such as the names of sport clubs). Also, select this option if you want
Figure 5