Using SPSS to Understand Research and Data Analysis.

1.3  The EZDATA Project and File

Throughout this text we will be illustrating how to compute different statistics in the context of a single, hypothetical research project. Further, we will use the same data file (which we will call EZDATA) throughout the book as we demonstrate the various types of data analyses called for by different research methodologies. We believe that this will provide you with a sense of the entire research process, from designing a study, through inputting the data into a file for analysis, to the computation of various statistics and interpretation of the results.

In using the same project and data set throughout, we hope to provide continuity between chapters and give you an appreciation for the unfolding process that researchers experience as they undertake each new analysis of the data. We will introduce this project and the EZDATA file in Chapter 5.

However, to introduce you the the main features of SPSS, we will first begin with a simple example using a much smaller data file. That way, you can learn the basics of SPSS procedures before applying them to the more complex EZDATA file, and this will provide added practice before you begin to work on exercises at the end of each chapter (which are likely to be assigned as homework by your instructor).

Once we begin working with the EZDATA file (beginning in Chapter 6), each chapter will include an example procedure using variables in the EZDATA file. The exercises at the end of each chapter will always ask you to complete the same procedures illustrated in the chapter example, but using a different set of variables in the file. This will facilitate your learning and will also provide continuity within and between chapters.