A Step by Step Guide for SPSS and Exercise Studies

6 Introduction
Dialog box 3
Dialog box 4
for the missing values of different variables. For example, you cannot use 9 to
indicate missing values of a variable that has a range of possible scores from 1 to
100.
The next two columns in Figure 6, Columns and Align, let you specify the
width of a column and the alignment (left, right, orcenter) of the values in the
column. The last column, Measure, is used to identify the level at which a
variable is measured. There are three levels. The first, scale, represents numeric
variables (see Type above) measured on an interval or ratio scale. An interval
scale has equal intervals of measurement, but there is no absolute zero (e.g.,
performance scores of divers or gymnasts). In contrast, a ratio scale has equal
intervals as well as an absolute zero (e.g., measurements of time or height). The
second level is ordinal, and refers to a ranking of variables, but with no
indication of how much better one variable is compared to another (e.g., high,
medium, and low dribbling skill). The third level is nominal, and describes
participants in distinct groups (e.g., males and females). The ordinal and
nominal levels should preferably have a combination of letters and numbers
(e.g., 1 ˆ males, 2 ˆ females; see Values above). For a detailed explanation of
the different levels, see Vincent (1999).