How to change values of select and grid response options?

Question

I want to change the values exported for my select and grid questions. As it is now, "Highly Satisfied," which we show first in a select question or left on a grid, is assigned a value of "1." I want it to export with a value of "5," so we don't have to recode in SPSS all of our variables...but I want the response option to appear in position 1. Any idea on how to do this?

PS: I'm currenlty running v7, but we are upgrading to v8 soon.

Answer 1

V8 provides you with a recode facility which would come in handy here.

Given you are using V7, give your scale the codes they need to be and create a constructed list that displays them in the reverse order.

Example ...

SatList (parent list)

1 Highly unsatisfied
2
3
4
5 Highly saisfied

SatConList (constructed list) - example 1
ADD(SatList)
Reverse()

SatConList (constructed list) - example 2
ADD(SatList,5)
ADD(SatList,4)
ADD(SatList,3)
ADD(SatList,2)
ADD(SatList,1)

You can use the example 2 method if you have generic codes like "Don't know" in the parent list. You would want "Don't know" to always appear last.

Comments

Thanks, Paul. Who knew it was so easy? This will save us a lot of trouble re-coding in SPSS!