Target Audience

Mid stage postgraduate research students

Early career researchers

Researchers who have completed experimental design, including the selection of appropriate statistical tests, and wish to find out how to use SPSS to perform those tests.

Pre-requisites

A pre-requisite of this course is attendance on an introductory course on quantitative research methods, such as 'Introduction to quantitative research' or 'Getting started with research design and statistics', or equivalent experience.

A current username and password for the University of Nottingham computer network are necessary. For guidance about getting online please see page 6 of "The Student's Guide to Library and IT Services 2010/11 edition" booklet (http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/is/documents/about/inductionguides/thestudentsguide2010-11.pdf)

Process

A one-day course consisting of presentations and "hands-on" practical

Description

The course explores how SPSS can be used in the analysis of quantitative data, drawing upon examples from recent research projects. SPSS version 16 will be demonstrated through practical exercises.

Related courses

This course builds on the material in the courses 'Getting started with research design and statistics' and 'Introduction to quantitative methods'

Please note: 'Introduction to SPSS for researchers' does not cover the analysis of individual's experimental data or discussion of their experimental design. The course pre-requisites include quantitative methods courses, which consider experimental design and the selection of appropriate statistical tests. You should discuss your individual data with your supervisor or colleagues in the first instance.

Post-course help

Newsgroups can be a very good source of help and information, try SPSSforum.com (http://spssforum.com) or the SPSS newsgroup at http://groups.google.co.uk/group/comp.soft-sys.stat.spss/topics. The site http://lib.stat.cmu.edu/ is also worth a visit.

Aims

To introduce researchers to the use of SPSS in quantitative data analysis. The course does not cover the analysis of individual's experimental data or discussion of their experimental design.

Objectives

During the course you will:

• cover a summary of relevant elements of quantitative research methods
• gain an introduction to the methods of data input, analysis and presentation using SPSS v.14
• develop a portfolio of material and techniques, which are transferable to different disciplines
• apply practical experiences to underpinning theoretical concepts.