Using SPSS to Understand Research and Data Analysis.

1.2 Why Have We Chosen to Work with SPSS?

There is no question that business, education, and all fields of science have come to rely heavily on the computer. This dependence has become so great that it is no longer possible to understand social and health science research without substantial knowledge of statistics and without at least some rudimentary understanding of statistical software.

The number and types of statistical software packages that are available continue to grow each year. In this book we have chosen to work with SPSS, or the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences. SPSS was chosen because of its popularity within both academic and business circles, making it the most widely used package of its type. SPSS is also a versatile package that allows many different types of analyses, data transformations, and forms of output - in short, it will more than adequately serve our purposes.

The SPSS software package is continually being updated and improved, and so with each major revision comes a new version of that package. In this book, we will describe and use the most recent version of SPSS, called SPSS for Windows 14.0 Thus, in order to use this text for data analysis, your must have access to the SPSS for Windows 14.0 software package.

However, don’t be alarmed if you have an earlier version of SPSS (e.g., Versions 12.0 or 13.0), since the look and feel of SPSS hasn’t changed much over the last three versions. Your instructor will explain any differences if you are using a version earlier than 12.0.