IBM SPSS Statistics 18 Made Simple

This two-colour new edition of one of the most widely read textbooks in its field introduces the reader to data analysis with the most versatile statistical package on the market: IBM SPSS Statistics 18. Although each new release of SPSS Statistics features new options and improvements, there remains a core of fundamental operating principles which apply to all the versions issued in recent years.

This friendly and informal book combines simplicity and clarity of presentation with a comprehensive treatment of the use of IBM SPSS Statistics 18 for the description, exploration and interpretation of data. As in earlier editions, coverage has been extended to address the issues raised by readers since the previous edition. This edition, for example, by request, describes the use of the AMOS package for path analysis and confirmatory factor analysis.

Each statistical technique is presented in a realistic research context and is fully illustrated with screen shots of SPSS dialog boxes and output. The first chapter sets the scene with a survey of typical research situations, key terms and clear signposts to the location of each technique in the book. It provides guidance on the choice of statistical techniques, and advice (based on the American Psychological Association’s guidelines) on how to report the results of statistical analyses. The next chapters introduce the reader to the use of SPSS, beginning with the entry, description and exploration of data. There is also a full description of the capabilities of the versatile Chart Builder. Each of the remaining chapters concentrates on one particular kind of research situation and the statistical techniques that are appropriate.

In summary, IBM SPSS Statistics 18 Made Simple

• Gets you started with SPSS.
• Shows you how to describe and explore a data set with the help of SPSS’s extensive graphics and data-handling menus.
• Helps you to choose appropriate statistical techniques.
• Warns you of the pitfalls arising from the misuse of statistics.
• Shows you how to report the results of a statistical analysis.
• Shows you how to use syntax to implement some useful procedures and operations.
• Shows how to use the AMOS package to run path analysis and confirmatory factor analysis.
• Has a comprehensive glossary.
• Is now presented in attractive two-colour.

The book’s accompanying website features datasets for the exercises in the book, as well as a large body of exercises, and notes on statistical terms. Instructor resources, including a PowerPoint lecture course and Multiple-Choice Question tests, are also available free of charge to qualifying adopters of the book and their students. Please visit http://www.psypress.com/spss-made-simple for more details.

After graduating from Edinburgh University, Dr Kinnear was appointed to the staff of the Department (now School) of Psychology at Aberdeen University. Besides writing various SPSS (now PASW) books, he has researched colour vision anomalies and defects, both congenital and those acquired as the result of pathological changes in the eye, as well as memory and spatial vision. He has contributed to the methodology of the measurement of colour vision, especially with respect to the Farnsworth-Munsell 100-Hue Test. He retired in 2004, but is still collaborating in research at the School of Psychology.

After graduating from Queen’s University Belfast, Dr Gray was appointed to the staff of the Department (now School) of Psychology at Aberdeen University. Dr Gray retired from his full time post of Senior Lecturer in 2007, but continues to teach in the School of Psychology on a part time basis (especially at postgraduate level, where he currently conducts five sessions with the MRes and MSc students). Besides co-authoring a long list of books on statistical computing and methodology, he has researched extensively in the fields of neuropsychology, deafness and developmental psychology and has published many papers and book chapters in these fields.