SPSS (Statistical Package): Basic Part 1

Prerequisites

SPSS is a powerful general purpose statistical package with high quality graphics and tabulation facilities, and a reputation for being relatively user-friendly. This course is for beginners and fairly new users of the package. Basic concepts and use of SPSS will be introduced. The main aim of the course is to give participants a foundation and some background. However statistical techniques are not covered (see note below).

• Familiarity with Windows to the level covered by the Computing Service's introductory/Level 1 courses
• Familiarity with simple statistical concepts.

Number of sessions: 1

• Introduction to user interface menus, data views, and output formats
• Obtaining built-in assistance for data analyses
• Simple data entry
• Understanding dialog boxes and output
• Creating and changing variables
• Reorganizing and reshaping data
• Basic data manipulation and analyses - just enough to get started and do useful work

Presentations, demonstrations and practicals.

SPSS v. 16 on PWF Windows

• No attempt is made to teach statistical techniques, though simple examples are used to show the principles of SPSS use. The self-teach courses "Statistics for the Terrified" and "SPSS Intro and Guide to Data Analysis" are available.
• Practicals will be run on PCs using SPSS for Windows.
• Part 2 (which must be separately registered for) deals mainly with importing data and with the very powerful facilities for managing and editing output from SPSS. The Beyond the Basics course builds on this foundation and is strongly recommended.

One half day session

• Scientific Computing
• Statistical and Mathematical Software