Using Spss to Solve Statistical Problems A Self-Instruction Guide

Preface The motivation for writing this text comes from ten years of experience with students enrolled in beginning statistics classes. Students in these classes have had to deal with the challenges of learning not only statistical concepts, but also how to use the computer software (SPSS) that will guide them through their statistical analyses. Whether you are a student learning about statistics for the first time or an experienced researcher who has used statistics throughout your career, you are likely to have many encounters with software such as SPSS for Windows. Such programs have become more "user friendly" over the years with the introduction of graphical menus and windows. The modern graphical user interface is a far cry from the "old days" of writing code and punching cards. Nevertheless, learning to use a new software program is still difficult, especially when you don't use the program on a regular basis. Learning to use the software package, however, is just the first step. You also need to be able to make sense of the output generated by the software program so you can incorporate it accurately in your research reports. We have written this book to assist you with two tasks: 1) using SPSS to solve statistical problems and 2) making sense of the output. We believe this book will serve as a valuable supplement in a beginning or intermediate statistics course. Becoming proficient with SPSS for Windows will make the process of statistical analysis less time consuming and painstaking, allowing you more time to think about research design and analysis, and strengthening the overall quality of your work. An overview of the text organization and key features follows. SPECIAL FEATURES AND TEXT ORGANIZATION Step-by-Step Illustration of Statistical Procedures.For each statistical procedure addressed in this book, we provide a brief rationale for its use as well as a few examples. In most cases, these examples are drawn from real data gathered from graduate students enrolled in a beginning statistics course. Each statistical procedure is presented in a step-by-step manner using SPSS for Windows. Each menu and screen encountered in these steps has been captured and used to further illustrate the process. Following the illustration of each procedure, we thoroughly discuss and interpret the output generated by SPSS. Data disk.A data disk is included with this text. It contains all the data files you will need to follow along with each chapter's illustrations. These files are carefully named to correspond with the chapters in which they are used. For example, the data used in Chapter 4 is identified as "chap 4 data." These data files have been created from a larger data set pertaining to graduate students enrolled in a beginning statistics course. To make things easier for you, we have included only the variables you will need for the chapter's illustrations. Practice Exercises.Practice Exercises are included at the end of each chapter so you can apply and expand upon what you have learned. These exercises are brief and focus on the specific procedures illustrated in that chapter. The answers to these exercises are provided in Appendix D so you can check your work. Organization of the text.This text is divided into seven sections. The first section (Chapters 1 through 4) provides an overview of SPSS, how to retrieve and save SPSS files, how to define variables and create a data set, and how to import and merge data files. In Section 2 (Chapters 5 through 7), we explore various data analysis procedures that are used to summarize and describe data. These procedures include frequency analysis and descriptive statistics. The third section includes three chapters (8 through 10), which illustrate how to transform variables, create new variables, and estimate the reliability of variables. The variableDavenport, Mark A. is the author of 'Using Spss to Solve Statistical Problems A Self-Instruction Guide', published 2000 under ISBN 9780132675765 and ISBN 0132675765.