Module 2: SPSS and Descriptive Statistics (Series 2)

This module is part of the Social Science Research Methods Course programme which is a shared platform for providing research students with a broad range of quantitative and qualitative research methods skills that are relevant across the social sciences.

This module is essential for the statistical methods modules, which follow.

Mphil Students from participating departments taking the Social Science Research Methods Course as part of their research degree

• You must be a complete beginners in statistics and are eligible to attend this course
• You must have a PWF username and password
• You must have a CamTools

• Session 1: Introduction to SPSS and basic statistical concepts
• Session 2: Statistical models and elementary data analysis with SPSS
• Session 3: Management of data and output
• Session 4: Getting the best out of SPSS

The objective of the course is to introduce students to one of the most frequently used statistics packages for social sciences, SPSS and review basic statistical concepts and introduce basic analyses with SPSS.

• To learn how to enter data into SPSS
• To learn how to use the SPSS environment and how to handle output produced by SPSS

Presentations, demonstrations and practicals

SPSS v. 16 on PWF Windows

Three Exercises

Throughout all introductory statistics modules the main textbook is:

• Field, Andy (2009), Discovering Statistics using SPSS. London:Sage

Ch.2 gives an overview of how to use SPSS and can be used in conjunction with this course.

• To gain the maximum benefits from the course it is important that students do not see this course in isolation from the other MPhil courses or research training they are taking. Responsibility lies with each student to consider the potential for their own research using methods common in fields of the social sciences that may seem remote. Ideally this task will be facilitated by integration of the SSRMC with discipline-specific courses in their departments and through reading and discussion.

Four sessions of two hours

Four times a year