Easy to use, good for basic to moderate research purposes
Updated January 14, 2018
Easy to use, good for basic to moderate research purposes
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Modules Used
- IBM SPSS Statistics
Overall Satisfaction with IBM SPSS
I am a researcher and instructor at a large midwestern university. IBM SPSS is used across the campus by various disciplines for research. I use it for communication research to run statistics for content analyses, experiments, and survey studies. Overall, it has been a useful tool for running the tests that I have needed to run. It takes a few runs at it to fully understand the layout and functions, but it is easy to use once you get the hang of it.
- Correlations are easy to run.
- Labeling of variables.
- Great charts and tables.
- It is easy to import from Excel and export to Excel.
- There are a few things that I know you can do in other statistical software like STATA that you can't do in SPSS. But it's a give and take. ANOVA is better in SPSS than STATA, but I hear from my friends in a different discipline that STATA is better for more complex survey research and regressions.
- It takes a long time to run tests because there aren't many shortcuts.
- Can be a little slow at times.
IBM SPSS is used pretty much across the board at my university. Some departments use STATA or other programs, but they have to pay for these out of their own budgets. The university has a contract with IBM that allows us to use SPSS for free as long as we are affiliated with the university. Operationally, it has made our ability to conduct research more cost efficient since researchers aren't having to buy their own software.
- Quicker analyses versus using something like Excel.
- Since many disciplines use SPSS, it has made research partnerships easier.
- It is free for me to use through my institution, so my ROI is great! :)
- Excel
The only other program I have personally used for data analyses is Excel. Honestly, if you just need to run a quick Pearson's r, Excel may be the way to go. Most of use already have extensive experience with Excel from using it throughout our schooling for various tasks. This familiarity will make Excel optimal for running a very basic test. However, if you have a lot of data, and want to use it to examine a number of relationships between variables, SPSS will be better suited for you.
Using IBM SPSS
1000 - People within my organization largely use SPSS to analyze data from academic or grant-funded research. Since I work at a university, people from across all departments and disciplines use the program as our university has a contract with the company to allow us to use it for free. I have used the program to analyze survey data and data from content analyses most recently.
We do not have any in-house support that I know of. I generally use Youtube or textbooks for help when needed.
- survey research
- experiment research
- content analysis research
Evaluating IBM SPSS and Competitors
- Price
- Product Features
- Product Usability
- Existing Relationship with the Vendor
The single most important factor in my decision to use IBM SPSS is that it was offered to me for free through my affiliation with the university I work for. It is also the program that my co-researchers from other universities prefer. Since we work on data analysis together, it makes sense to use the same program.
IBM SPSS Training
- Self-taught
Some functions of SPSS can be tricky to learn on your own, but YouTube videos were really helpful throughout this process. I would recommend self-learning for those who are moderately tech savvy and have a background in quantitative research. If you don't have a background in statistics, self-learning will be more difficult.
Using IBM SPSS
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Like to use Technical support not required Well integrated Consistent | Slow to learn Lots to learn |
- Descriptive Statistics
- Frequencies
- Correlations
- Adding variables is tedious
- Finding some tests is difficult