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Issues in Using SPSS in an Educational Research Environment . Ian Schagen National Foundation for Educational Research 11 th November 2005. What Is NFER?. UK’s leading independent educational research organisation
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Issues in Using SPSS in an Educational Research Environment Ian Schagen National Foundation for Educational Research 11th November 2005
What Is NFER? • UK’s leading independent educational research organisation • Income largely through sponsored research – government, quangos, charities, other organisations • Main office in Slough – smaller offices in York and Swansea; links with Queen’s, Belfast
What is SRAG? • Statistics Research and Analysis Group • 12 statisticians working as a team • Responsible for all analysis of quantitative data throughout NFER • Work closely with researchers as part of the project team • Analysis of survey data • Analysis of national test data • Analysis of test development data
Why Use SPSS ? • Most analysis uses SPSS • Some specialist software • Excel for presenting results to schools etc. • Use largely historical • Investment in macros and standard bits of code • Accessibility for researchers
Use of SPSS Syntax • We use syntax for all our work to provide an ‘audit trail’ and to aid QA • Need to ensure one-to-one link between syntax and output (same name) • Dangers of ‘point and click’ approach • Able to pick up standard syntax and macros – tested and documented • But beware of ‘black box’ mentality
Why I Use SPSS-6 • Better output • Batch mode available (from DOS)
Advantages of SPSS-6 Output • Consistent font throughout • ASCII file can be opened by any editor • Output breaks across pages sensibly • Can be imported to Word etc easily • Frequency tables have number of cases underneath each table • Titles appear routinely • Errors can be searched for easily
On the Other Hand ... • SPSS-11 etc are more powerful, and there are some things they do that can’t be done in SPSS-6 • Some output formats may be better in some cases
How We Use SPSS • Often, all analysis is carried out in SPSS, from raw data to final results – e.g. basic frequencies, crosstabs, multiple response, factor analysis, regression. • Other times, SPSS is used to provide an interface between different pieces of software • A number of standard SPSS macros have been created to do certain tasks
Example: Feedback to Schools • On occasions we want to provide schools with graphical displays of their pupils’ attitudes compared with others. • Data is cleaned in SPSS and aggregated to school level. • This is output to an Excel file, one row per case. • An Excel template uses a macro to read the school data and print one copy for each school.