IBM SPSS Essentials

Managing and Analyzing Social Sciences Data

John T. Kulas, Renata Garcia Prieto Palacios Roji, Adam M. Smith

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781119417422
• eBook ISBN: 9781119417446
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Informatica
• Subtopic: Informatica generale

Master the fundamentals of SPSS with this newly updated and instructive resource

The newly and thoroughly revised Second Edition of SPSS Essentials delivers a comprehensive guide for students in the social sciences who wish to learn how to use the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) for the effective collection, management, and analysis of data. The accomplished researchers and authors provide readers with the practical nuts and bolts of SPSS usage and data entry, with a particular emphasis on managing and manipulating data.

The book offers an introduction to SPSS, how to navigate it, and a discussion of how to understand the data the reader is working with. It also covers inferential statistics, including topics like hypothesis testing, one-sample Z-testing, T-testing, ANOVAs, correlations, and regression. Five unique appendices round out the text, providing readers with discussions of dealing with real-world data, troubleshooting, advanced data manipulations, and new workbook activities.

SPSS Essentials offers a wide variety of features, including:

• A revised chapter order, designed to match the pacing and content of typical undergraduate statistics classes
• An explanation of when particular inferential statistics are appropriate for use, given the nature of the data being worked with
• Additional material on understanding your data sample, including discussions of SPSS output and how to find the most relevant information
• A companion website offering additional problem sets, complete with answers

Perfect for undergraduate students of the social sciences who are just getting started with SPSS, SPSS Essentials also belongs on the bookshelves of advanced placement high school students and practitioners in social science who want to brush up on the fundamentals of this powerful and flexible software package.

Part I
Introduction

1
What is SPSS?

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Chapter Menu

• Chapter Learning Objectives
• What Is SPSS Used For
• Summary

Chapter Learning Objectives

1. History of SPSS
2. SPSS uses and capabilities
3. Additional statistical programs
4. Importance of syntax

Welcome to the first stage of your adventure learning how to use SPSS^®, one of the more commonly used statistical software programs. The name SPSS is an acronym for Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, and is owned and sold by IBM^®. As a valuable tool for running statistical analyses, SPSS is currently used by individuals across a variety of fields and disciplines, expanding past its original market solely within the “social sciences”.

SPSS has two primary functions: (1) as a data organizer/manager and (2) as a data analyst. Both parts will be covered in detail throughout this book, and by the end you should be able to not only create and organize data efficiently, but also run statistical analyses based on a variety of data structures. It's important to keep in mind how crucial the process of data organization is, since analyses run on faulty data can lead to incorrect conclusions and some very confusing output from SPSS. Luckily, we are here to steer you in the right direction.

Like most software programs, SPSS is continually being updated, just like your constant Android or iOS mobile updates. SPSS updates are intended to improve the user experience as well as add additional functionality to help you better analyze and visualize your data. In the beginning versions of SPSS, users were required to use mainframe and DOS‐based programs, which required users to program (enter computer code language) in order to organize and run analyses. Fortunately, the current version of SPSS (25 as this book is being written) includes a comprehensive set of click and dropdown menus in order to help you perform these functions.

In addition to perpetual software updates, the field of statistics changes over time (improvements and slight alterations are generally made) and new statistics are constantly being “discovered”. To stay current with statistical advancements and platform limitations and changes (such as changes in Microsoft Windows), the SPSS program is frequently updated. Whether you are using the most recent or an older version of SPSS, the information in this book will still serve you the same. All figures and examples will be shown from a PC perspective, but the information is also applicable to a Mac audience.

What Is SPSS Used For

SPSS has the capability to perform a wide variety of statistical analyses, both descriptive and inferential (these terms will be covered later in Chapters 7 and 8). It is used by researchers (biologists, psychologists, sociologists, and economists) and public and private sector workers (accountants, human resources professionals, and actuaries). These individuals use SPSS to test hypotheses in experimental and field settings, summarize information, and create graphs and figures.

The primary power of SPSS lies in its wide variety of statistical options and its ability to perform these analyses quickly. There are other software programs available that do a nice job of, for example, creating customizable graphs and figures, but SPSS creates these in addition to its primary purpose of processing data using appropriate statically formulae.

The Power of SPSS

Given the vast array of options SPSS offers, running large numbers of analyses can become confusing, especially when trying to repeat something you did previously. For example, you could spend an hour running analyses in SPSS by clicking dropdown menus, and afterward you realized you made a mistake 30 minutes prior. How would you know where you made your mistake? How would you go about trying to fix the issue? Unfortunately, this happens on a frequent basis, even for well‐seasoned SPSS veterans. But don't lose hope, because SPSS allows you to keep track of all the work you've previously done, and gives you a physical trail of everything you've done. It does this through what refer to as a syntax diary.

We previously mentioned how older versions of SPSS required users to write their own code to run functions. While this is still possible, SPSS also anticipated the needs and common mistakes made by modern users and currently has the capability to generate code for you. It then places this code in a file that serves as a record of what you've done (and, if you're a good diary writer, why you've done it). Later chapters will cover how this is done, but take our advice, this function will be your greatest ally in mastering SPSS and impressing your professor, boss, colleagues, or friends of your statistical genius.

SPSS Compared to Other Programs

SPSS was designed specifically for the purpose of performing statistical analyses. There are other software programs that perform statistics as th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• IBM SPSS Essentials
• Copyright
• dedication
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Author Biography
• Part I: Introduction
• Part II: Statistics
• Part III: Advanced Data Management
• Appendix A: Appendix ACompleted Questionnaire Form Example
• Appendix B: Appendix BExample Code Sheet for Questionnaire
• Appendix C: Appendix CSummary of Creating and Defining a Data File
• Appendix D: Appendix DExample Syntax File Integrating Multiple Commands (Fulfilling Multiple Purposes)
• Appendix E: Appendix ECommands To Know, Organized By Importance
• Answers to Chapter Discussion Questions
• Index
• End User License Agreement