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SPSS Statistics for Students

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SPSS is the premier statistical analysis software, and has been the industry benchmark for decades. It is practically impossible to do work in the social sciences without understanding the basic uses and functions of SPSS. As the full name of the software (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) suggests, the suite is especially designed for use in the social sciences and has become standardized in some fields like psychology (Field, 2005). Researchers can use SPSS to input the raw data from their research designed and the software can compute a practically limitless set of statistics based on those raw figures and inputs. Basic descriptive statistics such as frequency and rates of distribution are obviously available, as are various ratios that can be drawn from the data. Simple correlations can therefore be drawn. However, there are many more robust uses for the software including the ability to run some of the most sophisticated analytic techniques that ensure the reliability and validity of the research. These techniques include an Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), bivariate correlations, t-tests, chi-tests and more. Regression analyses, factor analyses, and two-step cluster analyses are also possible using SPSS (IBM, 2013). It is impossible to imagine computing the data gleaned from research in any other way, although there are competing products on the market. The vast majority of researchers and analysts in the educational, "think tank," and corporate sectors are

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