SP17

1. Class Agenda – Quantitative Analysis
January 6
4:00 pm – 4:15 pm Faculty and support staff Introduction
Housekeeping
 Food/drinks
 Breaks
 ID responsibilities
 Saving to flash drive
4:15 pm – 4:30 pm Class introductions
 Who are you?
 Where are you from?
 What do you do?
 Where do you work?
 What is your concentration?
 What is your experience with SPSS, other programs?
 Why are you taking this class? Besides, “because it was the only thing I could take”
 What did you want to be or do for a living when you were little? What is your dream job now?
4:30 pm – 5:00 pm Review the syllabus and course schedule
5:00 pm – 5:15 pm VPN and saving files
Get to know our Blackboard course site
5:15 pm – 5:45 pm Datasets (found under course information) and code books
We have 3 datasets we will work with in this class. We will primarily work with the PARC dataset. We
will not actively use the BRFSS dataset but it is available to you for your final hypothesis assignment.
 PARC (download the dataset, review and understand the codebook, review the PowerPoint
presentation)
 BIRTH (this is a sample of birth records from vital statistics, download the dataset, review and
understand the codebook)
 BRFSS (review the PowerPoint)
5:45 pm – 6:05 pm Break
6:10 pm – 6:30 pm TBD
6:30 pm – 7:00 pm What is SPSS?
SPSS is a software package used for conducting statistical analyses, manipulating data, and generating
tables and graphs that summarize data. Statistical analyses range from basic descriptive statistics, such
as averages and frequencies, to advanced inferential statistics, such as regression models, analysis of
variance, and factor analysis. SPSS also contains several tools for manipulating data, including functions
for recoding data and computing new variables, as well as merging and aggregating datasets.
January 7
8:30 am – 11:30 am Learning SPSS
10:00 Break