SPSS stands for Statistical
Package for the Social Sciences that reflects the original market of the
social sciences but it is also very popular in many other fields that include
the health sciences as well as marketing. Since it was first introduced, this
software has come a long way and made its place truly and well among serious
users. Now, SPSS is a widely used program for dissertations and statistical analysis in social
science, market researchers, health researchers, survey companies, government,
education researchers, marketing organizations, data mining and many other
fields too.
The best thing about this
software is that it allows even the ordinary researchers to conduct their own
statistical analysis most comfortably. In addition to this, data management
like case selection, file reshaping, creating derived data and data
documentation are key parts of the base software.
Some of the statistics
included in the base software that help in performing statistical analysis include:
·
Descriptive statistics: Cross tabulation,
Frequencies, Descriptives, Explore, Descriptive Ratio Statistics
·
Bivariate statistics: Means, t-test, ANOVA,
Correlation (bivariate, partial, distances), Nonparametric tests, Bayesian
·
Prediction for numerical outcomes: Linear
regression
·
Prediction for identifying groups: Factor
analysis, cluster analysis (two-step, K-means, hierarchical), Discriminant
·
Geo spatial analysis, simulation
·
R extension (GUI)
It would not be wrongto say
that SPSS has gone a long way in simplifying statistical analysis and most of
the users can now make use of the software without needing expert assistance. It
can be used for descriptive statistics such as frequencies, measures of central
tendency, and measures of dispersion while it can also be used for inferential
statistics like correlation, regression, and analysis of variance. All this
provides students and researchers a chance to use the data and analyze it most
easily without any chance of making mistakes in the results.
It is necessary to know while
performing analysis that descriptive statistics offer more information about
the sample used in the research, while on the other hand, inferential
statistics are used to make deductions or predictions about the general
research population from which the sample was taken. Depending on the
objectives, research questions, or hypotheses, the various tests like T-test,
Chi-square test, Person correlation and Spearman rank-order correlation as well
as others can be used to work out the data most effectively.
Before actually using this
software, students and researchers need to know that this platform offers the
most advanced statistical analysis, a vast library of machine learning
algorithms, text analysis, open source extensibility, integration with big data
and seamless deployment into applications. All this makes it very easy to use
as well as flexible so that users at all levels can use it for their projects.
With this application, not it
has become easy to users to turn data into actionable insights with predictive
analytics. All they need to do is to learn which analytical capabilities will
enable them to find the greatest value in your data and make confident,
accurate business decisions. the better users learn to use the SPSS software,
the better analysis they can obtain and the better results they can look
forward to in the class.