SPSS Statistics is a software package used for statistical
analysis. Long produced by SPSS Inc., it was acquired by IBM in 2009. The
current versions (2015) are officially named IBM SPSS Statistics. Companion
products in the same family are used for survey authoring and deployment (IBM
SPSS Data Collection), data mining (IBM SPSS Modeler), text analytics, and
collaboration and deployment (batch and automated scoring services).
The software name originally stood for Statistical Package for
the Social Sciences (SPSS), reflecting the original market, although the
software is now popular in other fields as well, including the health sciences
and marketing.
SPSS is a widely used program for statistical analysis in
social science. It is also used by market researchers, health researchers,
survey companies, government, education researchers, marketing organizations,
data miners, and others. The original SPSS manual (Nie, Bent & Hull, 1970)
has been described as one of "sociology's most influential books" for
allowing ordinary researchers to do their own statistical analysis. In addition
to statistical analysis, data management (case selection, file reshaping,
creating derived data) and data documentation (a metadata dictionary was stored
in the datafile) are features of the base software.
STATISTICS INCLUDED
IN THE BASE SOFTWARE:
·
DESCRIPTIVE
STATISTICS: Cross tabulation, Frequencies, Descriptives, Explore,
Descriptive Ratio Statistics
·
BIVARIATE
STATISTICS: Means, t-test, ANOVA, Correlation (bivariate, partial,
distances), Nonparametric tests
·
PREDICTION
FOR NUMERICAL OUTCOMES: Linear regression
·
PREDICTION
FOR IDENTIFYING GROUPS: Factor analysis, cluster analysis (two-step,
K-means, hierarchical), Discriminant
The many features of SPSS Statistics are accessible via
pull-down menus or can be programmed with a proprietary 4GL command syntax
language. Command syntax programming has the benefits of reproducibility,
simplifying repetitive tasks, and handling complex data manipulations and
analyses.
Additionally, some complex applications can only be programmed in
syntax and are not accessible through the menu structure. The pull-down menu
interface also generates command syntax: this can be displayed in the output,
although the default settings have to be changed to make the syntax visible to
the user. They can also be pasted into a syntax file using the
"paste" button present in each menu. Programs can be run
interactively or unattended, using the supplied Production Job Facility.
Additionally a "macro" language can be used to
write command language subroutines. A Python programmability extension can
access the information in the data dictionary and data and dynamically build
command syntax programs. The Python programmability extension, introduced in
SPSS 14, replaced the less functional SAX Basic "scripts" for most
purposes, although SaxBasic remains available. In addition, the Python
extension allows SPSS to run any of the statistics in the free software package
R. From version 14 onwards, SPSS can be driven externally by a Python or a
VB.NET program using supplied "plug-ins". (From Version 20 onwards,
these two scripting facilities, as well as many scripts, are included on the
installation media and are normally installed by default.)
SPSS Statistics places constraints on internal file
structure, data types, data processing, and matching files, which together
considerably simplify programming. SPSS datasets have a two-dimensional table
structure, where the rows typically represent cases (such as individuals or
households) and the columns represent measurements (such as age, sex, or
household income). Only two data types are defined: numeric and text (or
"string"). All data processing occurs sequentially case-by-case
through the file. Files can be matched one-to-one and one-to-many, but not
many-to-many.
The graphical user interface has two views which can be
toggled by clicking on one of the two tabs in the bottom left of the SPSS
Statistics window. The 'Data View' shows a spreadsheet view of the cases (rows)
and variables (columns). Unlike spreadsheets, the data cells can only contain
numbers or text, and formulas cannot be stored in these cells. The 'Variable
View' displays the metadata dictionary where each row represents a variable and
shows the variable name, variable label, value label(s), print width,
measurement type, and a variety of other characteristics. Cells in both views
can be manually edited, defining the file structure and allowing data entry
without using command syntax. This may be sufficient for small datasets. Larger
datasets such as statistical surveys are more often created in data entry
software, or entered during computer-assisted personal interviewing, by
scanning and using optical character recognition and optical mark recognition
software, or by direct capture from online questionnaires. These datasets are
then read into SPSS.
SPSS Statistics can read and write data from ASCII text
files (including hierarchical files), other statistics packages, spreadsheets
and databases. SPSS Statistics can read and write to external relational
database tables via ODBC and SQL.
Statistical output is to a proprietary file format (*.spv
file, supporting pivot tables) for which, in addition to the in-package viewer,
a stand-alone reader can be downloaded. The proprietary output can be exported
to text or Microsoft Word, PDF, Excel, and other formats. Alternatively, output
can be captured as data (using the OMS command), as text, tab-delimited text,
PDF, XLS, HTML, XML, SPSS dataset or a variety of graphic image formats (JPEG,
PNG, BMP and EMF).
SPSS Statistics Server is a version of SPSS Statistics with
a client/server architecture. It had some features not available in the desktop
version, such as scoring functions. (Scoring functions are included in the
desktop version from version 19.)
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