Information AboutSpss |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT SPSS | |
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SPSS is a Computer Program used for statistical analysis and is also the name of the company (SPSS Inc.) that sells it. STATISTICS PROGRAM SPSS (originally, Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) was released in its first version in 1968 , and is among the most widely used programs for Statistical Analysis in Social Science . It is used by market researchers, health researchers, survey companies, government, education researchers, and others. In addition to statistical analysis, data management (case selection, file reshaping, creating derived data) and data documentation (a Metadata dictionary is stored with the Data ) are features of the base software. The many features of SPSS are accessible via Pull-down Menus (see image) or can be programmed with a proprietary 4GL ''command syntax language''. Command syntax programming has the benefits of reproducibility and handling complex data manipulations and analyses. The pull-down menu interface also generates command syntax, though the Default settings have to be changed to make them visible to the user. 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 and 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. From version 14 onwards SPSS can be driven externally by a Python or a VB.NET program using supplied "plug-ins". SPSS places constraints on internal file structure, Data Types , Data Processing and matching files, which together considerably simplify programming. SPSS datasets have a 2-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 2 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. Different versions of SPSS are available for Windows , Mac OS X and Unix . The Windows version is updated more frequently, and has more features, than the versions for other Operating Systems . SPSS 15.0 needs a downloadable hotfix installed to be compatible with Windows Vista . SPSS Inc. has announced that the 2007 release 15.1 of SPSS will run natively on Mac Intel X86 processors. SPSS can read and write data from ASCII text files (including hierarchical files), other statistics packages, Spreadsheets and Databases . SPSS can read and write to external Relational Database Tables via ODBC and SQL .
Statistics included in the base software:
Add-on modules provide additional capabilities. The available modules are:
SPSS Server is a version of SPSS with a client/server architecture. It has some features not available in the desktop version, one example is Scoring Functions . SPSS INC. The program SPSS is sold by SPSS Inc. , a company that sells a wide range of software for Market Research , Survey research and statistical analysis. These include AMOS for Structural Equation Modeling , SamplePower for Power Analysis , AnswerTree used for Market Segmentation , SPSS Text Analysis For Surveys to code open-ended responses, Quantum for cross-tabulation, Clementine for Data Mining and MrInterview for CATI and online surveys. The company is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois . OTHER VERSIONS SPSS version 13.0 for Mac OS X is currently not compatible with Intel -based Macintosh computers, due to the Rosetta Emulation Software causing errors in calculations. SPSS also does not support the use of the Windows version of SPSS under emulation or dual-booting, such as Boot Camp or Parallels . Thus, SPSS Inc. does not currently support any version of SPSS which will run on the Intel-based Macs. According to SPSS Inc., SPSS version 16, which is due for release in the second half of 2007, will support Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. The Mac OS version will be provided as an Universal Binary , making it fully compatible with both PowerPC and Intel-based Mac hardware. SPSS webpage providing details for SPSS Mac support and version 16 SEE ALSO REFERENCES
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