Initialise Wizard: Selector

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If the Selector or Flag Array variable type was chosen, then the number of categories to define for the variable has to be specified as well as whether the variable should be treated as sequenced or not.

The number of categories defines the number of possible values that the variable can take.  The sequence defines if the variable can be ordered or not.  These settings have slightly different meanings depending on whether you are defining a Selector or Flag Array variable.

For Selector Variables

The value of the variable for any given record can only be one of these categories.  The first category has a special meaning as "unclassified".  When changing the values of this variable using the Assign Values Wizard, any records that don't fall into any of the other categories will be set to the "unclassified" category.  Therefore, an unclassified code will be added for you, so you will have the number of categories you have indicated, plus an unclassified category.

A Selector variable can also be defined to have a sequence.  Some variables are definitely unsequenced, such as a person's job title.  There is no sensible way of defining whether "HR Manager" comes before or after "Sales Manager", they are simply names of categories.  Therefore the variable should be defined with a sequence type of "Nominal".

However, some variables can be considered sequenced.  For example, you may have a variable for a person's income band.  This might contain categories such as "<10k", "10-20k", "20-30k", etc.  In this case you definitely can say that "<10k" is less than "10-20k" and so this income band variable can be considered as sequenced.  Depending on what order the selector's categories are going to be defined in you can set the sequence type to be "Ascending" or "Descending".  For example, if the above income band variable will be defined with the following categories:

Unclassified

<10k

10 - 20k

20 - 30k

30 - 40k

40 - 50k

50 - 60k

60 - 70k

70 - 80k

80 - 90k

90 - 100k

> 100k

Then the sequence type would be "Ascending".

For Flag Array Variables

The value of the variable for any given record can be 0 or more of the defined categories. No unclassified category is used in a flag array variable.

Also, for Flag Array variables, the sequence type will always be "Nominal".

 

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