Antonius R. Interpreting Quantitative Data with SPSS

SAGE – 2003, 337 pages
ISBN: 0761973982This book corresponds to an introductory course in quantitative methods for the social or human sciences. It explains the basic statistical procedures used in social research, and places their use in the general research process of which they are a part. The theoretical explanations are accompanied by applied exercises that use the SPSS software. After studying the theoretical material and doing the SPSS exercises, stu- dents should be able to collect their own data, enter it in SPSS, analyze it, interpret the results, and present such results in summary reports.
What follows consists of more details on the contents of the book, how it is struc- tured, and how to make the best use of it.
The book deals with the production, presentation, analysis, and interpretation of quantitative data, all presented and conceptualized as part of a social research process. Thus the interpretation of statistical results takes as much importance in the book as the explanation of the formulas used to compute such results. The book makes use of elementary statistical techniques that are explained and put into use with the help of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences software, known as SPSS. No prior knowl- edge of SPSS or of statistics is assumed, and this statistical package is explained in 14 lab sessions that guide the student through the elementary functions of the program, which correspond to the theoretical material shown in the first part of the book.
We will examine the research process as a whole, and see where and how quanti- tative methods are used. Students who study this book are expected to acquire the practical abilities needed to produce data files, to organize them, to carry out statis- tical computations with them, to present their results, and to interpret them correctly. In addition to these abilities, students are also expected to acquire some of the theoretical knowledge that will allow them to use quantitative methods in an appro- priate manner, and to understand their power and, more importantly, their limits.The Basic Language of Statistics
The Research Process
Univariate Descriptive Statistics
Writing a Descriptive Summary
Normal Distributions
Sampling Designs
Databases on Social Statistics
Statistical Association
Inferential Statistics
Estimation
Inferential Statistics
Hypothesis Testing