Course Outline:
Although I will have a dataset available and will be teaching from that dataset, this course will be much more useful and meaningful if you have a dataset of your own. We will begin the course by developing research questions that we wish to answer with our data. As research is often a social enterprise, we will be sharing our ideas via web discussion with the other course participants. We will read your data into SPSS from whatever format you are using. I will provide instruction on importing data from a variety of sources including Excel, ACCESS, OBDC, flat-file data (tab-, comma-, column-delimited) using the Text Import Wizard, etc. We will examine ways to describe data using frequency counts, percentages, and, when appropriate, measures of central tendency such as the mean. You will learn which description methods are most appropriate for particular forms of data, how to create new variables such as sum scores and means, how to identify bad data, and how to deal with problems such as outliers and missing data. Once you have practiced your data manipulation skills, we will address accepted best practices in statistical reporting and you will learn how to create tables, charts, and graphs that communicate your message efficiently and effectively. In the course of learning SPSS, we will use the menu system to do much of the work. However, you will also learn how to take advantage of SPSS syntax and simple macros to create short-cuts that could save you hours of “pointing and clicking”. If you come into this course with a real dataset and real questions, you should finish with report-ready tables and charts.

Learning Outcomes:
Upon completion of this course, active participants will be able to:

• Recognize the advantage of using statistical software in student personnel work
• Create, manipulate, and process simple datasets using SPSS
• Create simple tables and charts using SPSS
• Follow accepted best practices in statistical reporting
• Understand why simple spreadsheets such as Excel are woefully inadequate for statistical reporting

Optional resources:
Most any beginner’s guide to SPSS will be helpful. Might I ashamedly recommend Shannon and Davenport’s Using SPSS to Solve Statistical Problem as it covers both SPSS and elementary statistics? A separate statistics book is not necessary but I will provide a list of books, articles, and websites that I consider good, basic references for descriptive statistics and graphics.

Instructor Bio:
Mark Davenport is the Senior Research Analyst in the Institutional Research Department at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. From 2001 to 2006, he directed assessment and evaluation services within the Division of Student Affairs at UNCG and was the National Chair of NASPA’s Assessment Knowledge Community. He has been an SPSS user for 15 years, a member of the SPSS Consumer Relations Board for five years, and a software beta tester for the five most recent versions of SPSS. He is also the co-author (with David Shannon) of Using SPSS to Solve Statistical Problems (Prentice-Hall, 2001). Prior to moving to Greensboro, Mark worked as a researcher in the Statistical Research Department at ACT, Inc. in Iowa City, IA. Mark has a B.A. in psychology from Mesa College in Grand Junction, Colorado; an M.S. in College Student Development and a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology, both from Auburn University in Alabama.