A Step-by-Step Approach to Using SAS® for Univariate & Multivariate Statistics, Second Edition

Introduction: Why Perform Simple Descriptive Analyses?

The procedures discussed in this chapter are useful for (at least) three important purposes. The first involves the concept of data screening. Data screening is the process of carefully reviewing data to ensure that they were entered correctly and are being read correctly by the computer. Before conducting any of the more sophisticated analyses to be described in this text, you should carefully screen your data to avoid computational errors (e.g., numbers that were accidentally entered, out-of-range values, numbers that were entered in the wrong column). The process of data screening does not guarantee that your data are correct, but it does increase the likelihood by identifying and fixing ...