SPSS Transform Recode into Different Variable in MS Excel to Reverse Response Scales

While SPSS allows one to perform some interesting transforms on variables from within the software package, it is often much cleaner to perform data transformations and variable computations from with MS Excel before data Import into SPSS.

While using MS Excel, suppose your response data for a 1 to 10 “Likert scale” is in column B and you want to recode it into Column C:



Use the Choose Function in MS Excel to reverse scale as follows:
1. Enter “=CHOOSE(B1, 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1)” without the quote marks into Column C
2. Copy the function in Step 1 down the column for the remainder of Column C.
3. Use Paste Special Values to copy the values in Column C over the function.
Note: The Choose Function uses an “index” scheme to decide how to replace the values. For example, the first index location #1 appears in the function argument list immediately after the cell B1, so a response value of 1 becomes 10, and so forth.