From the course: SPSS: Data Visualizing and Data Wrangling

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Computing scores

Computing scores

From the course: SPSS: Data Visualizing and Data Wrangling

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Computing scores

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- [Instructor] A final bit of data wrangling I want to show it to you, is how to compute scores either by averaging or by counting variables. Now, there's a few reasons for doing this. Number one is sometimes you're working with things that are supposed to be average, you're using a published scale and you need to combine things, but often the real advantage here is that by aggregating your data, not only do you have fewer variables you have to deal with in your analyses, but you reduce the effect of the idiosyncratic noise for each variable. If you have several variables that are all supposed to measure approximately the same thing, they each bring in their own little bit of stuff with them. But when you average, those variations tend to average out, and so you tend to get a better impression of the true signal that you're trying to measure in the first place. So creating scores either by averaging or by counting, can be two good ways of reducing your data and getting a clearer…

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