Data Foundations with SPSS

Course Overview

This two-day intensive program led by Dr. Peter Graif will amplify your skills with a practical mastery of IBM's SPSS statistical research package. No prior experience with SPSS is required, but at least two years experience in research, monitoring, or evaluation is strongly suggested. This course is open to anyone but targeted especially at development analysts seeking to bring new capacities to their organizations.

The emphasis of this course will be on direct, actionable skills. At its conclusion, participants will be able to use SPSS to manage data sets, conduct sophisticated analyses, and produce insights to guide decision making.

This course is open to anyone but targeted especially at development analysts seeking to bring new capacities to their organizations. At the end of the program, participants who are able to pass a short practical exam will be awarded a certificate of proficiency.

At the end of the program, participants able to complete a practical exam will be awarded the Open Institute's DATA FOUNDATIONS certification.

Due to the highly interactive nature of this program, attendance will be limited to eight participants.

Schedule and Learning Objectives

Day 1

• Designing Quantitative Surveys
  At the conclusion of this unit, students should be able to:
  • Decide between qualitative and quantitative research methods in response to a given set of research goals
  • Go deeper into data by exploring some key paradoxes of statistical knowledge
  • Design clear, well-defined variables for a range of research tasks
  • Start a new data set in SPSS and navigate the program's core interfaces
• Structuring Data
  At the conclusion of this unit, students should be able to:
  • Interpret frequency distributions when represented as histograms
  • Set up a project in SPSS and structure the data appropriately
  • Enter data into SPSS manually or via import
• Lunch
• Statistical Description
  At the conclusion of this unit, students should be able to:
  • Use SPSS to describe the characteristics of a data set
• Visualization
  At the conclusion of this unit, students should be able to:
  • Use SPSS to produce a wide range of graphs representing data

Day 2

• Understanding Regression
  At the conclusion of this unit, students should be able to:
  • Describe appropriate uses and limitations of regression
  • Perform basic multivariate regression analysis using SPSS
• Inferential Techniques
  At the conclusion of this unit, students should be able to:
  • Interpret key inferential indicators appropriately (p-value, chi-square, confidence intervals)
  • Run a variety of inferential tests using SPSS
• Lunch
• Advanced Data Management
  At the conclusion of this unit, students should be able to:
  • Use SPSS to recode and rescale variables
  • Use SPSS to filter complex data sets
• Certification Exam
  As part of this course, students will be given the opportunity to take the Open Institute's DATA FOUNDATIONS certification exam. The exam lasts one hour,