1. Issues in Using SPSS in an Educational Research Environment Ian Schagen National Foundation for Educational Research 11 th November 2005

2. What Is NFER? n UK’s leading independent educational research organisation n Income largely through sponsored research – government, quangos, charities, other organisations n Main office in Slough – smaller offices in York and Swansea; links with Queen’s, Belfast

3. What is SRAG? n Statistics Research and Analysis Group n 12 statisticians working as a team n Responsible for all analysis of quantitative data throughout NFER n Work closely with researchers as part of the project team n Analysis of survey data n Analysis of national test data n Analysis of test development data

4. Why Use SPSS ? n Most analysis uses SPSS n Some specialist software n Excel for presenting results to schools etc. n Use largely historical n Investment in macros and standard bits of code n Accessibility for researchers

5. Use of SPSS Syntax n We use syntax for all our work to provide an ‘audit trail’ and to aid QA n Need to ensure one-to-one link between syntax and output (same name) n Dangers of ‘point and click’ approach n Able to pick up standard syntax and macros – tested and documented n But beware of ‘black box’ mentality

6. Why I Use SPSS-6 n Better output n Batch mode available (from DOS)

7. Example Output – SPSS-11

8. Example Output – SPSS-6

9. Advantages of SPSS-6 Output n Consistent font throughout n ASCII file can be opened by any editor n Output breaks across pages sensibly n Can be imported to Word etc easily n Frequency tables have number of cases underneath each table n Titles appear routinely n Errors can be searched for easily

10. On the Other Hand... n SPSS-11 etc are more powerful, and there are some things they do that can’t be done in SPSS-6 n Some output formats may be better in some cases

11. How We Use SPSS n Often, all analysis is carried out in SPSS, from raw data to final results – e.g. basic frequencies, crosstabs, multiple response, factor analysis, regression. n Other times, SPSS is used to provide an interface between different pieces of software n A number of standard SPSS macros have been created to do certain tasks

12. Example: Feedback to Schools n On occasions we want to provide schools with graphical displays of their pupils’ attitudes compared with others. n Data is cleaned in SPSS and aggregated to school level. n This is output to an Excel file, one row per case. n An Excel template uses a macro to read the school data and print one copy for each school.