User Guide

119
Data Preparati
on
Missing Values. For numeric variables, the system-missing value is treated like any
other value—cases with the system-missing value for an identifier variable are treated
as having ma
tching values for that variable. For string variables, cases with no value
for an identifier variable are treated as having matching values for that variable.
Visual Band
er
The Visual
Bander is designed to assist you in the process of creating new variables
based on grouping contiguous values of existing variables into a limited number of
distinct categories. You can use the Visual Bander to:
 Create categorical variables from continuous scale variables. For example, you
could use a scale income variable to create a new categorical variable that
contains
income ranges.
 Collapse
a large number of ordinal categories into a smaller set of categories.
For example, you could collapse a rating scale of nine down to three categories
representing low, medium, and high.
In the first step of the Visual Bander, you:
E Select the numeric scale and/or ordinal variables for which you want to create new
categorical (banded) variables.