SPSS and Statistics Refresher (pre-workshop)
Eugene Horber

This optional workshop will be held on Friday and Saturday, the week before before the regular workshops starts. This preparatory workshop will only be held if at least 10 participants have registered by mid-June. The number of participants is not limited.

This two-day workshop is free of charge to participants of regular workshops or can be booked by itself for a fee.

Eugène Horber is Professor of Applied Computer Science in the department of political science and international relations at the University of Geneva. He teaches social science methodology, applied computer science, and statistics to social scientists. His research interests and publications are in the area of statistical methodology, aggregate data analysis, data visualization and applied computer science (didactical software, hypertext), as well as computer assisted qualitative analysis. He is the author of a software package for exploratory data analysis.

Workshop contents and objectives

As several workshops will use SPSS or assume skills with SPSS for data preparation and management as the main computer package, as well as some skills with statistics the purpose of this two-day workshop is to offer optimal learning and teaching conditions by helping you to refresh knowledge and skills that you have acquired previously or that need some updating and refreshing. This workshop is highly recommended for all those who need to strengthen or refresh their skills with SPSS and basic to intermediate statistics.

The aim of this two-day effort will be an opportunity to brush up and deepen your skills with data preparation, data management and basic to intermediate statistics using IBM SPSS Software. or learn to use SPSS, if you are familiar with other statistical packages.

During this workshop you will work on your own through a sequence of exercises and guided explorations using an e-learning approach. Depending on your past experience and your research needs, you can spend more or less time on a particular topic. We will be around to provide guidance and help you in case of difficulties.

Topics covered

1. Data and data management
• Create a data file (survey example) including documentation, data cleaning and verification
• Transformations: Simple and complex recodes, scale building and other tasks required to prepare data for analysis
• Data management tasks like subsetting files, merging files etc.
2. Statistics refresher
• Univariate analysis and diagnosis
• Relationships: Crosstabs, association, scatterplots, analysis of variance
• More details on regression (model building, dummy variables)
3. Further topics
• Preparing output for publication (graphics and tables)
• Working styles: Output management, prevent disaster etc.
• SPSS and Statistics related learning and information resources

Prerequisites

You should have some minimal background - even rusty - in statistics and data analysis.

If you need an introductory course, you should register for the Statistics & SPSS for Social Scientists workshop; this preliminary workshop is not intended for you.