Simulation with SPSS

Posted by John Exton on Feb 21, 2012; 10:04pm
URL: http://spssx-discussion.165.s1.nabble.com/Simulation-with-SPSS-tp2856363p5503497.html

I found an old thread apparently starting a discussion on simulation, but the OP didn't respond to a clarification question, so it seems to have died long ago.  I am interested in creating simulated data sets for student use.  I want to ensure that the data sets have the appropriate characteristics for weekly discussion.  I assume there is a mechanism for creating such data sets in SPSS/PASW, but I do not know how to do it.  Ideally, I would like to begin with very simple descriptive statistics but "non-small" data sets (not really large, but a couple hundred observations would be nice).

Can anyone point me in the right direction for a start?  I assume this is something that must be done through syntax rather than menus, but I haven't been able to find a primer that discusses it so far.