Use of statistical software to analyze the results

Use of statistical software to analyze the results- SPSS

 “Statistics” is a “collection of numerical facts or data”. It is also a “body of methods and techniques for analyzing numerical data”. Statistical techniques have many purposes, which include methods and procedures for summarising, simplifying, reducing and presenting raw data. It then makes predictions, tests hypotheses and infers characteristics of a population from the characteristics of a sample.

Statistics is generally thought of as serving two functions. One is to describe sets of data; the other is to help in drawing inferences. Most research studies result in a large volume of raw data which must be suitably reduced so that the same can be read easily and can be used for further analysis. Classification and tabulation, achieve this objective to some extent, but we have to go a step further and develop certain indices or measures to summarise the collected/classified data. Only after this we can adopt the process of generalisation from small groups (i.e., samples) to population.

Thus the role of statistics in research is to function as a tool in designing research, analysing its data and drawing conclusions therefrom.

Statistical Softwares/packages

A statistical package is the software for the collection, organisation, interpretation, and presentation of numerical information. The need for a statistical package has arisen because of the complexity of calculations involved in making inferences from the data. The advances in computing technologies have made statistics a yet more powerful field.

The most widely used piece of statistical packages/ software for statistics is Excel. SPSS, SAS and Minitab.

SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences)

 SPSS is a versatile and responsive program designed to undertake a range of statistical procedures such as manipulating, analyzing, and presenting data; the package is widely used in the social and behavioral sciences. 

SPSS, (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) is perhaps the most widely used statistics software package within human behavior research. It is widely used in Market research, Surveys, Competitor Analysis etc in the Field of Social Sciences. 

SPSS can easily compile data and perform analysis, or carry out more advanced statistical processing. It has a good range of statistics from descriptive methods (means, medians, frequencies etc.) to common tests (t-tests, regression, ANOVA) and some more advanced statistical measures (e.g. Factor analysis) It is user friendly.

Functionalities of SPSS

Some of the functionalities of SPSS includes the following

• Data Transformations
• Data Examination
• Descriptive statistics
• Correlation
• T-tests
• ANOVA
• MANOVA
• Regressions
• Factor analysis
• Cluster analysis and so on 

The SPSS Consists of 2 Sheets – One Is the Data View and the Variable View

 Features of SPSS

• It is easy for you to learn and use
• SPSS includes a lot of data management system and editing tools
• It offers in-depth statistical capabilities
• It offers an excellent plotting, reporting and presentation features

Benefits of SPSS

SPSS is considered the best tool to use since it makes possible

1. Effective data management- SPSS in data analysis easier and quicker - it reduces the manual work of the user to a great extent
2. Gives a wide range of options- SPSS offers a wide range of methods, graphs and charts . It also comes with better handling of the information as  a preparation for further analysis.