Customer Reviews

SPSS For Dummies

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

The "For Dummies" series are funny books and are sometimes helpful but, much like Sparknotes or Cliffnotes, they are inherently flawed. This is ESPECIALLY true for anything that has to do with computerization; if you really need to earn something then you really need a book that will teach you a solid way to generate results. In the case of SPSS I really thinks this is true and then some - the program gives you all sorts of ways to test and to generate answers BUT the word dummies doesn't really play here.
If anything, it seems criminal to tell people they can learn something without hammering away at it.

A few of my students have used this book and the truth of the matter is this: they learn the most basic functions of the program but, when asked to perform something a little more difficult, they freeze and their eyes frost. The book doesn't add in the terminology needed, doesn't cover the ideas behind concepts, and doesn't even cover the stuff an introduction class would.
If you need help and need it badly, this would set you back and confuse you even more. Instead, you could buy a SPSS Basics book to grasp the immediate, look into an Experimental Design class to learn what SPSS is attempting (you can look online and see what classes require, then mirror the class without taking it if you can't afford the time), or you could consult the program and the book that accompanies it. Either way, this is not progression but the illusion of progression and you can tell that by reading exactly what it promises to teach you.
Very bad primed.

This book is very helpful in becoming acquainted with the rather complex SPSS statistics software program. I recommend the book for others who need assistance in learning how to use this statistical software and need it presented in a practical manner for the lay person.

This Dummies book will get you introduced to SPSS but will use all sorts of statistics jargon and you are lost unless you've built a solid foundation in statistics previously. Also, it hardly touches on some quite basic yet very useful parts of SPSS (e.g. descriptive statistics>frequencies) ... quite odd ! If you're new to both SPSS and statistics this may be a better choice Discovering Statistics Using SPSS (Introducing Statistical Methods)

This book is very good for people, who just now have started to work with SPSS and never have done it before: easy to understand how to enter data, make graphs, and other very important things. Almost all is shown by examples of SPSS.

SPSS for dummies did get me started. It did not match up exactly with some actions, but served the purpose.

If you're in a policy analysis course and need to understand SPSS output for multivariate analysis - don't buy this book. It provides a good introduction to the basics of SPSS and how to understand how SPSS thinks. However, for more advanced functions it falls short

You will not be able to see the illustrations, the screen-shots that walk you through the process. It does you no good if you cannot see what they are doing - that is the whole point of these kind of books: see and do. The kindle-edition is guaranteed to piss you off if you really need to understand this.

SPSS (originally, Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) has been around for quite awhile now. But its impact on the social sciences has been great (as other software packages such as SAS). In graduate school, we began with a program designed for Biomedical users. In those days, one had to type commands and statements on Hollerith cards, using a card punch. Take the cards to a window in the computer center, watch someone bring your tape with data on it, install it on a tape drive, and run the program on the data.

SPSS was a major step forward, and subsequent versions have become more powerful. Also, more complex. So is is absolutely predictable that SPSS would become the subject for the ". . .for Dummies" series. And this volume does a decent job helping the reader get through SPSS. . . .

I bought this book because I needed to use SPSS and had no experience with the program. I read Chapter 1 and Chapter 4 to start and this gave me a good basis. Then I read other chapters as questions came up. If you are used to using computers and learning how to do new things on the computer, then this book is perfect for you. Do not get this book if you are looking for a book to tell you when to run which statistics. This book tells you HOW, not WHEN or WHY. I supplemented the book with SPSS Help menu and internet sights for more complex actions like regression. Overall, I would recommend this book!

I purchased this book as a requirement for a research class. This book does not provide enough information to be of any use. I spent more time on Google trying to get answers to SPSS. The book is particularily lacking when trying to understand the SPSS output tables.