Alok Kumar

PGDM 2ND YEAR

SPSS: A Tool for Survey Analysis

What is SPSS?
SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) is a computer application that provides
statistical analysis of data. It allows for in-depth data access and preparation, analytical
reporting, graphics and modeling.

SPSS is a comprehensive and flexible statistical analysis and data management system. SPSS can
take data from almost any type of file and use them to generate tabulated reports, charts, and
plots of distributions and trends, descriptive statistics, and conduct complex statistical analyses.
SPSS is available from several platforms; Windows, Macintosh, and the UNIX systems.

SPSS for Windows, brings the full power of the mainframe version of SPSS to the personal
computer environment. It will enable us to perform many analyses on your PC that were once
possible only on much larger machines. SPSS for Windows provides a user interface that makes
statistical analysis more intuitive for all levels of users. Simple menus and dialog box selections
make it possible to perform complex analyses without typing a single line of command syntax.
The built-in SPSS Data Editor offers a simple and efficient spreadsheet-like utility for entering
data and browsing the working data file. High-resolution, presentation-quality charts and plots
can be created and edited. Using the SPSS Viewer, you can handle the output with greater
flexibility. SPSS for Windows also reads data files from a variety of file formats including Excel,
SAS, and Stata.

IMPORTANCE OF SPSS

Nearly every Social Science Graduate/Management student has encountered SPSS at some
point in his/her graduate or post graduate career. SPSS is an essential feature of statistical
analysis for many social science researchers, management trainee/researchers. It is also
widely used in business.
SPSS, which stands for statistical package for the social sciences, is an application that can aid
in quantitative data handling. The importance of this software especially to the students of
Social Science & Management field are of no bound. Before SPSS, researchers had to run
statistical tests on data sets by hand. However, SPSS automates this process. Not only does
SPSS allow we to run statistical tests, we can use SPSS for other purposes as well. It is also
helpful in analysis of data of organization for making the Summer Training Report. Every
educational institute should give the knowledge about SPSS to the students. The importance
of SPSS are as following.

1. Data Collection and Organization

SPSS is often used as a data collection tool by researchers. The data entry screen in SPSS looks
much like any other spreadsheet software. We can enter variables and quantitative data and
save the file as a data file. Furthermore, we can organize the data in SPSS by assigning
properties to different variables. For example, we can designate a variable as a nominal
variable, and that information is stored in SPSS. The next time we access the data file, which
could be weeks, months or even years, we'll be able to see exactly how the data is organized.

2. Data Output

Once data is collected and entered into the data sheet in SPSS, we can create an output file
from the data. For example, we can create frequency distributions of the data to determine
whether the data set is normally distributed. The frequency distribution is displayed in an
output file. We can export items from the output file and place them into a research article
we're writing. Therefore, instead of recreating a table or graph, we can take the table or graph
directly from the data output file from SPSS.

3. Statistical Tests

The most obvious use for SPSS is to use the software to run statistical tests. SPSS has all of the
most widely used statistical tests built-in to the software. Therefore, we won't have to do any
mathematical equations( like mean, median, mode etc.) by hand. Once we run a statistical
test, all associated outputs are displayed in the data output file. We can also transform the
data by performing advanced statistical transformations. This is especially useful for data that
is not normally distributed.
Hardware and Software Requirements
The minimum hardware and software requirements for SPSS for Windows are:

 Windows XP, Vista, or 7.

 Intel or AMD x86 processor at 1GHz or higher
 1 GB RAM
 1 GB hard disk space
 CD-ROM drive
 SVGA (800x600 resolution) graphics card