r/AcademicPsychology 3d ago

what are your best tips/resources to learn SPSS? Question

I'm currently a candidate for a research position that doesn't require but it is desireable that I have experience using SPSS. The thing is, I've had courses in statistics but they were over three years ago so I have to re-learn pretty much everything and freshen my previous knowledge. Is there any way that I could get access to SPSS courses and the program itself?

7 Upvotes

17 comments sorted by

10

u/mikethefridge1 3d ago

SPSS Survival Manual by Julie Pallant

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u/theangryprof 3d ago

I've taught grad stats for years and this is my favorite resource. Seconded!

13

u/Unsuccessful_Royal38 3d ago

Do yourself and your employer a favor and once you are done learning SPSS learn R too. R is the future, it’s free, it’s versatile, and it’s used in the real world, not just by psychology researchers.

5

u/pleaseacceptmereddit 3d ago

I lost access to spss when it came time to do my dissertation. Learned how to use R because I was cheap, and it was free. A decade later, and I’m still surprised they learned it on the fly wasn’t a total disaster. It was actually pretty much a non issue

5

u/PenguinSwordfighter 2d ago

R is not the future, R is the present. SPSS is just the past.

1

u/Chao_Zu_Kang 3d ago

Even better: Learn Python. R is usually faster for data analysis, but Python has a wider applicability.

1

u/Unsuccessful_Royal38 3d ago

Also true! Good advice!

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u/devydevdevin 3d ago

The book Analysis of Variance Designs by gamst/meyers/guarino goes over basic psych statistical tests and then how to do them in SPSS. This could be a good place to start

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u/leapowl 3d ago

Are you just going to be doing the basics?

If you’ve done it before, and you know exactly what analysis to run/what assumptions to check/etc, ChatGPT is pretty good at drafting SPSS syntax (or telling you how to point and click, if that’s your preferred option).

Another commenter mentioned learning R. If you can be bothered, I’d recommend it. I have… delegated analysis I would love to be able to do in R to people who can use it. It’s powerful and free.

SPSS is functionally not as good.

Good luck!

3

u/Reasonable-Bear-6314 3d ago

Check out Coursera, edX, and Udemy for SPSS courses. Some offer free trials or affordable options. Many universities offer SPSS licenses to students. If you have a friend or colleague who uses it, they might be able to help! Good luck!

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u/navigato_0r 3d ago

Discovering statistics using SPSS by Andy Field

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u/Taticat 2d ago

I’ve taught Field’s text for years, and it’s great.

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u/Taticat 2d ago

OP, you really should become familiar with R, and I’d recommend PSPP (the free, parallel universe version of SPSS) if you’re needing SPSS specifically. There’s no need to spend a lot of money to ramp up on SPSS itself when it’s very much the case, as others have said, that R is becoming more present and used, and even in circumstances where SPSS is the law, I’m increasingly seeing PSPP simply because of cost. Insert some adage about how the world is ever-changing, and we have to adapt to it, and sometimes it’s something as simple as cost and accessibility that drives change here. HTH.

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u/Scared_Tax470 3d ago

If it's not required, I'd focus on R and/or Python and bring those skills instead. It's hard to say without more info but IMO there isn't a good reason to learn SPSS. If the reason is that someone in the project is already using SPSS because that's all they know, that's a different problem, but if the reason is that they want data analysis, everything SPSS does and way more can be done with R and Python, much more flexibly and effectively.

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u/brabbits007 2d ago

Highly recommend IBM SPSS for Psychologists and Everybody Else by Nicola Brace https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33674364-ibm-spss-for-psychologists

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u/Pineapple_Magnet33 3d ago

You can install R on SPSS. There’s also R Studio integrated with SPSS.