Almost 4 years ago I asked for some help with this program. At the time I got none and had to work it out on my own. Now Like Chucky, I'm back.

Today was one of those days that you hope you never have, but are glad you did. I went to do some data analysis today with my team members-4 ladies locked in a room for 7 hours with 5 computers and nothing but data!-amazingly good fun.

After reverting to raw data because I didn't have the software on my computer and the uni I was at didn't have it either, I ended up looking at 1000's and 1000's of different 0's, 1's, and .'s. (Our Item bank needed validation and we have over 10,000 items). Now I'm far from a smart cookie, but managed to sort all of it by hand and enter it into excel to work out the SD and AVE.

Now I need to put the darned thing into SPSS and get a graph. OK, one of the girls on the team wants a graph that is different from the graphs I got on excel. Am I reverting to my thick self, or are they just going to be exactly the same? I really don't want to waste another 7 hours tomorrow. I have a consultant to meet and Darryl's recent post has made me determined to get up at 4 to jog over to the Gold Coast (21k away)

Any helpers out there????

Hi Rox,

It has been many years since I used SPSS! I only used it for certain non-parametric tests. I preferred minitab and even used it to test for Gaussian conformity. More recently I have used excel. You have my email address - if you still need help then let me know what exactly you need.

It is worth mentioning that depending on what you are doing, Excel can give results that are considered not well calculated. Some statistical concerns have been addressed in later versions. Regardless of whether or not you use them, I feel like also mentioning that quantiles (percentiles and the like) are not well standardized and there are different approaches to them that give different results amongst the different software. It really annoyed me when I looked into what the "proper" method was supposed to be and found out that there is a multitude of methods, and textbooks don't care to mention that, and so I feel like complaining every chance I get.

I would be happy to help. However I haven't got a clue what SPSS is or what on earth you are talking about.

Tony. And that is why I asked.

Problem solved. Graphs made. Work done. (for now-more tomorrow I'm sure)

Hi Tony,

SPSS is a VERY expensive very powerful piece of software for statistical analysis. It is almost the default for scientists and medical researchers. It is also absolutely horrible to use! The alternatives are Minitab (even worse!) or Excel with the stats add on (nowhere near as powerful and some have claimed not rigorously accurate in its methods).

I am so glad I don't have to do that anymore!

You left out R which in terms of power and flexibility beats the pants off of SPSS and other statistical suites.

The way I see it:

• SPSS: non-programmers and non-hard scientists
  
• Mathematica: mathematicians and some statisticians
  
• Matlab: engineers
  
• R: computer scientists, statisticians, and programmers
  
• Excel: the ignorant

I had never heard of r - it looks terrific! I think your summary is perfect!

I recall using SAS back in the day. I remember that being a pain to use, but when you got it working, you punch in a few data points and it would spit out a 30 page report.

Just to get an off topic post even more off topic, I have a theory that lots of medical researchers need this powerful software solely that they can get to the conclusion they want

Seriously though, every day I hear some BS medical report that is completely wrong because "The fundamental problem with statistical inference is that association does not equal causality."

One I heard the other day in blaring bold letters "DIET SODA MAY CAUSE OBESITY", ummm no perhaps it's that people who are obese may tend to drink diet soda more than others. Either way much more analysis needs to be done and in the mean time, the media should just ignore the press release because all it does is cause confusion.

-d

Err...applied linguists? Where do we fit in? (and why in Hades do we need numbers when we deal with words???)

To be honest, I hate excel with a passion. Every time I try to do something on it the formulas go wonky on me. ok, maybe it has a little something to do with getting the cell numbers done up just right...

Since you are listing out programs, Can I ask about LISREL? It's another semi-costly bit of software. I took an introductory course on it in 2004, discovered SPSS shortly after and never continued with the LISREL. This year I have been given some money to learn programs. I'm in my second Winsteps workshop in August. Shortly after I'll be doing a facets thing. Should I spend the money on learning the LISREL again or would I be better off taking-god forbid-an excel course??