• tables that show
  • all values that occur for a specified variable
  • how frequently the values occur
  • the percentage of times they occur, based on
    • the total number of cases
    • only cases with valid data for the variable
• any statistic from this list
  • MEAN
  • SEMEAN
  • MEDIAN
  • MINIMUM
  • MAXIMUM
  • RANGE
• graphs
  • bar charts -- for discrete variables
  • histograms -- for continuous variables
    

FREQUENCIES

VARIABLES= [varlist]

The SPSS procedure FREQUENCIES reports a table of frequency counts (number of cases with each unique value of a variable) and percentages for the selected variables. It will also produce bar charts and histograms. Like the DESCRIPTIVES procedure, the FREQUENCIES procedure also computes univariate statistics (e.g., mean, standard deviation, etc.)

The example below illustrates the use of the FREQUENCIES procedure for analyzing the characteristics of the 861 local governments entitled to participate in the Community Development Block Grant program. The variables were obtained from Bureau of the Census reports and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The variables are:

REGION--Four census regions

TYPE--Type of local government (central city, suburban city, urban county)

POP86--Population estimate for 1986

POPSIZ86--Population size group (e.g., GT 1 million, 500,000-999,999, etc.)

Example of output produced by this command:

FREQUENCIES VARIABLES= REGION

[/FORMAT= [{NOTABLE }]

[/BARCHART=

[MINIMUM(n)]
[MAXIMUM(n)]

[/HISTOGRAM=

[MINIMUM(n)]
[MAXIMUM(n)]
[{NORMAL }
{NONORMAL}]
[INCREMENT(n)]]

[/HBAR=

see HISTOGRAM]

[/STATISTICS=

[defaults in bold]

[MEAN]
[STDDEV]
[MINIMUM]
[MAXIMUM]

[SEMEAN]
[VARIANCE]
[SKEWNESS]
[SESKEW]
[RANGE]
[MODE]
[KURTOSIS]
[SEKURT]
[MEDIAN]
[SUM]
[ALL]
[NONE]].

REGION    CENSUS REGION
 
                                                    VALID     CUM
 VALUE LABEL             VALUE FREQUENCY  PERCENT  PERCENT  PERCENT
 
 NORTHEAST                  1       198     23.0     23.0     23.0
 NORTH CENTRAL              2       211     24.5     24.5     47.5
 SOUTH                      3       237     27.5     27.5     75.0
 WEST                       4       202     23.5     23.5     98.5
 PUERTO RICO                5        13      1.5      1.5    100.0
                                 -------  -------  -------
                        TOTAL       861    100.0    100.0
         
 VALID CASES     861      MISSING CASES     0