How to Replace Missing Values with their Average

Introduction

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 replaced with their missing values as follows:

Method

1. Check that the Question Type of the questions is either Number or Number - Multi (and change it if necessary).
2. Select the question in the Blue Drop-down Menu and SUMMARY in the Brown Drop-down Menu.
3. Export the table to Excel.
4. Go to the Variables and Questions tab.
5. Select each variable in the question, one at a time, and:
   • Click on  for the variable in question (making sure to have only the one variable selected).
   • Press No.
   • Uncheck Missing Data for the categories that is being recoded as the average (if this is not checked as Missing Data already you will need to first set it to Missing Data for all the variables in the question and then go back to step 1).
   • In the Value field for the category that represents the missing data, paste in the value (from Excel) of the average.
   • 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 Recode Missing Values in Q

How to Hide and Remove Categories (Missing Values)

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