SPSS® 12.0 Command Syntax Reference

602 FREQUENCIES
NONORMAL Suppress the normal curve. This is the default.
Example
FREQUENCIES VAR=V1 /HIST=NORMAL.
• FREQUENCIES requests a histogram with a superimposed normal curve.
GROUPED Subcommand
When the values of a variable represent grouped or collapsed data, it is possible to estimate
percentiles for the original, ungrouped data from the grouped data. The GROUPED subcommand
specifies which variables have been grouped. It affects only the output from the
PERCENTILES and NTILES subcommands and the MEDIAN statistic from the STATISTICS
subcommand.
• Multiple GROUPED subcommands can be used on a single FREQUENCIES command.
Multiple variable lists, separated by slashes, can appear on a single GROUPED subcommand.
• The variables named on GROUPED must have been named on the VARIABLES subcommand.
• The value or value list in the parentheses is optional. When it is omitted, the program
treats the values of the variables listed on GROUPED as midpoints. If the values are not
midpoints, they must first be recoded with the RECODE command.
• A single value in parentheses specifies the width of each grouped interval. The data
values must be group midpoints, but there can be empty categories. For example, if you
have data values of 10, 20, and 30 and specify an interval width of 5, the categories are
10 ± 2.5, 20 ± 2.5, and 30 ± 2.5. The categories 15 ± 2.5 and 25 ±
2.5 are empty.
• A value list in the parentheses specifies interval boundaries. The data values do not have
to represent midpoints, but the lowest boundary must be lower than any value in the data.
If any data values exceed the highest boundary specified (the last value within the parentheses),
they will be assigned to an open-ended interval. In this case, some percentiles
cannot be calculated.
Example
RECODE AGE (1=15) (2=25) (3=35) (4=45) (5=55)
(6=65) (7=75) (8=85) (9=95)
/INCOME (1=5) (2=15) (3=25) (4=35) (5=45)
(6=55) (7=65) (8=75) (9=100).
FREQUENCIES VARIABLES=AGE, SEX, RACE, INCOME
/GROUPED=AGE, INCOME
/PERCENTILES=5,25,50,75,95.
• The AGE and INCOME categories of 1, 2, 3, and so forth are recoded to category
midpoints. Note that data can be recoded to category midpoints on any scale; here AGE
is recoded in years, but INCOME is recoded in thousands of dollars.
• The GROUPED subcommand on FREQUENCIES allows more accurate estimates of the
requested percentiles.