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SPSS

SPSS stands for Statistical Package for the Social Sciences. It is statistical software first launched in 1968 that is now owned by IBM and known as IBM SPSS Statistics. SPSS allows users to manage and analyze data through functions like opening various file types, editing data, creating tables and charts, running statistical tests, and saving outputs in multiple formats. It is commonly used for research in the social sciences.

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56 views3 pages

SPSS

SPSS stands for Statistical Package for the Social Sciences. It is statistical software first launched in 1968 that is now owned by IBM and known as IBM SPSS Statistics. SPSS allows users to manage and analyze data through functions like opening various file types, editing data, creating tables and charts, running statistical tests, and saving outputs in multiple formats. It is commonly used for research in the social sciences.

Uploaded by

Ambreen Saba
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Topic: SPSS

SPSS means “Statistical Package for the Social Sciences” and was first launched in 1968. Since SPSS was
acquired by IBM in 2009, it's officially known as IBM SPSS Statistics but most users still just refer to it as
“SPSS”.

SPSS Statistics is a statistical software suite developed by IBM for data management, advanced analytics,
multivariate analysis, business intelligence, criminal investigation. Long produced by SPSS Inc., it was
acquired by IBM in 2009. Current versions (post 2015) have the brand name: IBM SPSS Statistics.

Developer(s):Norman H. Nie, Dale H. Bent, C. Hadlai Hull

Initial releaseb:1968; 54 years ago

Stable release:May 24, 2021

Platform:Java

Size:1.2 GB

Type:Statistical analysis&Numerical analysis

SPSS - Overview Main Features


Now that we have a basic idea of how SPSS works, let's take a look at what it can do. Following a typical
project workflow, SPSS is great for

 Opening data files, either in SPSS’ own file format or many others;
 editing data such as computing sums and means over columns or rows of data. SPSS has
outstanding options for more complex operations as well.
 creating tables and charts containing frequency counts or summary statistics over (groups of)
cases and variables.
 running inferential statistics such as ANOVA, regression and factor analysis.
 saving data and output in a wide variety of file formats.

We'll now take a closer look at each one of these features.

Opening Data Files

SPSS has its own data file format. Other file formats it easily deals with include MS Excel, plain text files,
SQL, Stata and SAS.

SPSS - What Is It? - Excel Data

Web analytics data -often downloaded as Excel files- can easily be opened and further analyzed in SPSS
Editing Data

In real world research, raw data usually need some editing before they can be properly analyzed. Typical
examples are creating means or sums as new variables, restructuring data or detecting and removing
unlikely observations. SPSS performs such tasks -and more complex ones- with amazing efficiency.

For getting things done fast, SPSS contains many numeric functions, string functions, date functions and
other handy routines.

Tables and Charts

All basic tables and charts can be created easily and fast in SPSS. Typical examples are demonstrated
under Data Analysis. A real weakness of SPSS is that its charts tend to be ugly and often have a clumsy
layout. A great way to overcome this problem is developing and applying SPSS chart templates. Doing
so, however, requires a fair amount of effort and expertise.

SPSS - What Is It? - Styled Bar Chart

SPSS clustered bar chart with chart template applied

Inferential Statistics

SPSS contains all basic statistical tests and multivariate analyses such as

t-tests;

chi-square tests;

ANOVA;

correlations and other association measures;

regression;

nonparametric tests;

factor analysis;

cluster analysis.

Some analyses are available only after purchasing additional SPSS options on top of the main program.
An overview of all commands and the options to which they belong is presented in Overview All SPSS
Commands.

SPSS - What Is It? - T-Test Output

SPSS One Sample T-Test Output Example

Saving Data and Output


SPSS data can be saved as a variety of file formats, including

MS Excel;

plain text (.txt or .csv);

Stata;

SAS.

The options for output are even more elaborate: charts are often copy-pasted as images in .png format.
For tables, rich text format is often used because it retains the tables’ layout, fonts and borders. Besides
copy-pasting individual output items, all output items can be exported in one go to .pdf, HTML, MS
Word and many other file formats. A terrific strategy for writing a report is creating an SPSS output file
with nicely styled tables and chart. Then export the entire document to Word and insert explanatory
text and titles between the output items.

Right, I hope that gives at least a basic idea of what SPSS is and what it does. Let's now explore SPSS in
some more detail, starting off with the Data Editor window. We'll present many more examples in the
next couple of tutorials as well.

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