Course Resources Archive

This module is mainly concerned with mastering SPSS for Windows, the most popular and one of the most powerful computer packages for analysing quantitative data. Each session will consist of a short lecture followed by practical work to give students a thorough grasp of how to use this package on a personal computer.

This module focuses on key skills and concepts in quantitative data analysis. Content will include:

i. Knowledge and understanding
This module is designed to give students a basic grasp of the statistical techniques necessary for understanding and/or implementation of social research. No knowledge of post GCSE mathematics is assumed. In particular, having completed this module, students should be able to:
a)  create simple data sets for statistical analysis using a personal computer;
b)  carry out simple statistical analyses on their own data set or other secondary data sources;
c)  undertake simple data management tasks prior to statistical analysis;
d) analyse secondary data using simple statistical techniques using the software package SPSS.

ii Skills
At the end of this module, students should have the skill to understand and use the following data and research concepts:
a)  measures of central tendency and dispersion; elementary probability; common distributions; sampling distributions; elementary statistical inference; estimation and hypothesis testing; contingency tables, bi-variate correlation and regression;
b)  students should also be able to understand and describe the content of statistical tables derived from published statistical sources)  they should also be able to search for appropriate data for secondary quantitative analysis using the WWW.

The Library Catalogue contains full details of the current reading list for this module. Further details may also be found in the Module Guide.