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Bryman: Social Research Methods: 3e

Chapter 15

http://www.spss.com/
This is the home page of SPSS, headquartered in Chicago. Here, you can download a free, trial version of the latest version, SPSS for Windows 16, and buy a copy of the program if your college does not have one. It is very expensive for a single purchase, so you should be certain you will use it continuously before spending the money.  Apart from this commercial aspect, there are also lots of news stories, details of support and training workshops, and various 'white papers' about using this software.

http://www.ats.ucla.edu/Stat/spss/notes2/default.htm
This is an excellent and informative guide to using SPSS, complete with little movies that show you what the screens look like as you work along with the tutor.  The latest (Spring 2008) version is SPSS 16.  Bryman’s book uses version 15 (the first edition used version 12).  The resources in this link use version 11.5, so be aware that the version available to you may show the information somewhat differently.  The fundamentals are the same, from version to version, ever since the original was invented by Norman Nie in 1968. The resources in the link were prepared by the Academic Technology Services group of UCLA.

http://www.chass.ncsu.edu/training/SPSS/
Another useful tutorial is available at this link, this time using SPSS 13. The material was prepared by Garett Hobbs and Neel Kelkar (who also designed the graphics)of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, North Carolina State University.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPSS
This link gives a lot of the history behind SPSS.  It also lists most of SPSS functionality and provides quite a number of links to external sites.  Remember the earlier comment about the version number when you visit any tutorial site.  Considerable developments have taken place in computing power, even in the last few years and SPSS has kept up with these developments.  This means that modern versions of the software are more powerful and are much easier for the ’lay’ user to manipulate and master.

http://www.spsslog.com/
This is a Blog (web log) maintained by Mark Julsing and Andris Versteeg and contains a multitude of questions, answers and comments from experienced researchers as well as students struggling with the basic operations of SPSS.  It has no connection, other than its topic, with the SPSS company.  It is, therefore, independent in editorial comment.