How to Replace Missing Values With Their Average

If you have questions that have missing values, either because they are missing in the original data file or because they have been recoded as missing (e.g., by right-clicking on a category and selecting Remove), they can be replaced with an average value.

Method

1. Check that the Structure of the variable sets is either Numeric or Numeric - Multi (and change it if necessary).
2. Create a table with the variable set in the rows by dragging it onto your page to display as a summary table.
3. Export the table to Excel via Share > Export Report > Excel.
4. Go to the Data Sources tree.
5. Select each variable in the set, one at a time, and:
   1. Make sure to have only the one variable selected, and from Properties , click Data > Attributes > Values.
   2. Set the missing data row for the categories that are being recoded as the average to Include in Analyses in the Missing Values column.
   3. In the Value field for the category that represents the missing data, paste in the value from Excel of the average.
   4. Press OK.

Please note that:

• Recoding missing data as averages prior to performing multivariate analyses, such as cluster analysis, is not generally considered to be good practice.
• Latent Class Analysis automatically deals with any missing data.

Next

How to Turn Off Missing Data Selection for Specific Values

How to Set Value Attributes for a Binary-Multi and Binary-Grid

How to Change the Missing Data (NaN) Symbol in Tables