What is SPSS? Data from various sources need to be processed, analyzed, and used by survey companies, government agencies, education, health researchers, and data miners. Many research organizations use SPSS to analyze survey data and examine text data. Thus, they aim to make the most of their research projects.
What is SPSS Program?
SPSS, short for statistical package for the Social Sciences, is used by researchers for complex statistical data analysis. It means Statistics Package for Social Sciences. The SPSS program was released by SPSS Inc in 1968 and was acquired by IBM in 2009, and continues to be distributed under the name IBM SPSS Statistics. It is a powerful statistical software platform. Although it was developed for statistical analysis in social sciences and to make predictions that will affect the decision processes of businesses, it is a program widely used by big data analysts due to its potential.
In addition to statistical analysis, it is also used to generate qualified new data from existing data, perform due diligence, and create reconstructed data files. The data to be edited or analyzed with the program can be obtained from almost any source. Various scientific researches, corporate database records, server log files can be given as examples.
The Spss program works on Windows and Mac computers. It has a similar appearance to the Microsoft Excel program. SPSS is very similar to Excel in appearance. However, since it has analyzes that cannot be done with Excel, it is used extensively in scientific studies and is very popular. In academic studies, SPSS is mostly used in studies containing questionnaires to define the demographic characteristics of the participants, frequency and percentage calculations, reliability, correlation, regression, and difference analysis.
What Does the SPSS Program Do?
SPSS program is used in the analysis of some measurements obtained, especially in survey analysis. The frequency analysis method is used to determine the numerical distributions of the data. Descriptive statistics are used to calculate the mean, mode, standard deviation, and median values related to the obtained data. Descriptive statistics and frequency analysis are basic analyses and can be done easily.
Relationship or Comparison analyzes are made under two groups. These two groups are called parametric and nonparametric. Whether the parametric or nonparametric analysis method will be used is decided according to certain criteria. The main criteria are whether the data are homogeneous or normally distributed. Normal distribution and homogeneity data rank indicate how close or far the data are from each other, in other words, how dispersed they are.
When comparing descriptive statistics with frequency, parametric tests are Independent Sample t-test, One-Way ANOVA, one-way analysis of variance, and nonparametric equivalents of these tests, Mann Whitney U test, and Kruskal Wallis H tests. These analyzes are used to compare the mean rank of 2 or more groups. In addition to comparison analysis, correlation analysis such as correlation and regression can also be done with spss data entry on the SPSS program. While the regression analysis is applied only to the data showing normal distribution, correlation analysis can be done to the data showing normal distribution and non-normal distribution feature.
What Should Be Considered Before Performing Analysis with SPSS?
The biggest mistake made in SPSS analysis applications is the use of traditional approaches. The biggest mistake before SPSS analysis is the selection of wrong or incomplete data. It would also be wrong to try to do the same analysis that someone else did before analyzing the data collected after selecting the wrong and incomplete information. The important point in the analysis is not who does what kind of analysis, but whether the criteria are met. For this reason, first of all, it is necessary to check whether the data show a normal distribution, and appropriate tests should be selected. In addition, before the relevant test is performed, it should be checked whether the assumptions related to that test are met. Otherwise it will cause all analysis to be wasted. For this reason, if SPSS or another analysis program is to be used, it is necessary to consult an expert in this field before performing the analysis.
