Data view in Data Editor

For categorical data, the most typical summary measure is the number or percentage of cases in each category. The mode is the category with the greatest number of cases. For ordinal data, the median (the value above and below which half the cases fall) may also be a useful summary measure if there is a large number of categories.

The Frequencies procedure produces frequency tables that display both the number and percentage of cases for each observed value of a variable.

step  Choose Descriptive Statistics from the Analyze menu, then choose Frequencies from the submenu.

step Select Owns PDA (ownpda) and Owns TV (owntv) and move them into the Variable(s) list.

step Click OK to run the procedure.

The frequency tables are displayed in the Viewer window. The frequency tables reveal that only about 21% of the people own PDAs, but almost everybody owns a TV (99.2%). This might not be a very interesting revelation -- although it might be interesting to find out more about the small group of people who don't own televisions.

Summary Measures for Categorical Data