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SPSS Trainer Tip: Dimensions™ 3.0

Instructor profile

Angie Spackman

Name: Angie Spackman

Home office: SPSS Cincinnati, OH

About Angie: Angie worked in the market research industry for seven years in Chicago using SPSS market research software. She has worked with SPSS as a training and education consultant since February of 2000. She has a BA from Western Illinois University and enjoys cooking and spending time with friends in her spare time.


Filtering questions with Dimensions Scripting

Many surveys include questions that are based on multiple conditions, such as respondent answers and subsets of concepts to test. For example, the question in Figure 1 below gives multiple choices, the selection of which shape the follow-up question in Figure 2.

Screenshot
Figure 1: This question allows the respondent to select several options

Screenshot
Figure 2: This follow-up question is based on the locations selected in the question in Figure 1

In the Quancept scripting language, you would have to create a “dummy” question to hold the responses you want to display and to act as a filter for your follow-up question. You would also have to use sublists and master lists to ensure proper execution. In Figure 3 below, for example, the bolded sections in the Quancept script are necessary for appropriate filtering.

country DEFINE ’UK’ (‘uk’)/’USA’ (‘usa’)/’Spain’
(‘spain’)/’France’ (‘france’)/’Mexico’ (‘mexico’)
eurco DEFINE ’UK’ (‘uk’)/’Spain’ (‘spain’) /’France’
(‘france’)
qcntry ASK ’Which of these countries have you visited?’
RESP     MP     country
dummy1 DUMMYASK ’dummy storing European countries visited’
RESP     MP     country
UNSET dumeuro
qfor FOR i = eurco in country
             set subs = subscript
             SET pick = BIT(qcntry/subs)
             IF (pick) { SET dumeuro = i}
NEXT
eurlike ASK ’Which of the following European countries did you like?’
RESP     MP dummy1 in country

Figure 3: In this Quancept script, sublists, master lists, and bolded sections are necessary to ensure appropriate filtering

With Dimensions Scripting, the same script would look like the example in Figure 4 below. Notice that there are no sublists with master lists, and you don’t need a dummy question to store the responses first. A single bolded line in the routing section is all you need to filter the question.

Metadata(en-US, Question, label)
AmericanCountries DEFINE
{
      USA,
      Mexico
};

  EuropeCountries DEFINE
      {
            UK,
            Spain,
            France
      };

  CountriesVisited "Which of these countries have
  you visited?"
    categorical [1..]
      {
            use AmericanCountries,
            Use EuropeCountries
      };
  EurLike "Which of the following European
  countries did you like?"
    categorical [1..]
      { use EuropeCountries
      }

End Metadata

Routing(Web)
CountriesVisited.Ask()
'Filter line for the EurLike Question
EurLike.Categories.Filter=CountriesVisited.Response
EurLike.Ask()
End Routing

Figure 4: As you can see in this streamlined script, Dimensions Scripting enables you to filter the question without sublists and master lists

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