Summary Statistics Source for Categorical Variables
This example uses the data file survey_sample.sav. See the topic Sample Files for more information.
- From
the menus, choose:
- In the table builder, drag and drop Age category from the variable list into the Rows area of the canvas pane.
- Right-click Age category on the canvas pane and select Summary Statistics from the pop-up menu. (Since this is the only variable in the table, it is the statistics source variable.)
- In the Summary Statistics dialog box, select Column N % in the Statistics list and click the arrow to add it to the Display list.
- Click Apply to Selection.
- In the table builder, drag and drop Get news from internet to the right of Age category on the canvas pane.
- Right-click Age category on the canvas pane again. The Summary Statistics item on the pop-up menu is now disabled because Age category is not the innermost nested variable in the statistics source dimension.
- Right-click Get news from internet on the canvas pane. The Summary Statistics item is enabled because it is now the summary statistics source variable, since it is the innermost nested variable in the statistics source dimension. (Since the table has only one dimension—rows—it is the statistics source dimension.)
- Drag and drop Get news from internet from the Rows area on the canvas pane into the Columns area.
- Right-click Get news from internet on the canvas pane again. The Summary Statistics item on the pop-up menu is now disabled because the variable is no longer in the statistics source dimension.
Age category is once again the statistics source variable because the default statistics source dimension for categorical variables is the first dimension where you put variables when creating the table. In this example, the first thing we did was put variables in the row dimension. Thus, the row dimension is the default statistics source dimension; and since Age category is now the only variable in that dimension, it is the statistics source variable.