Different Summaries for Different Variables

In addition to displaying multiple summary statistics, you can display different summary statistics for different scale variables in a stacked table. For example, the previous table revealed that only one of the three variables has a large number of missing values; so you might want to show the number of missing values for only that one variable.

  1. Open the table builder (Analyze menu, Tables, Custom Tables).
  2. Click Age of respondent in the table preview on the canvas pane, and then Ctrl-click Highest year of school completed to select both variables.
  3. Right-click either of the two selected variables and select Summary Statistics from the pop-up menu.
  4. In the Summary Statistics dialog box, select Missing in the Display list and click the arrow key to move it back to the Statistics list, removing it from the Display list.
  5. Click Apply to Selection to apply the change to only the two selected variables.

    The placeholders in the data cells of the table indicate that the number of missing values will be displayed only for Hours per day watching TV.

  6. Click OK to create the table.
    Figure 1. Table of different summary statistics for different variables
    Table of different summary statistics for different variables

    Although this table provides the information that we want, the layout may make it difficult to interpret the table. Somebody reading the table might think that the blank cells in the Missing column indicate zero missing values for those variables.

  7. Open the table builder (Analyze menu, Tables, Custom Tables).
  8. In the Summary Statistics group in the table builder, select Rows from the Position drop-down list.
  9. Click OK to create the table.
Figure 2. Summary statistics and variables both displayed in the row dimension
Summary statistics and variables both displayed in the row dimension

Now it's clear that the table reports the number of missing values for only one variable.