SPSS

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SPSS The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, commonly known as SPSS, is the most widely used software package among academic sociologists. Developed in the United States by social scientists, it provides a range of facilities, including tabulation, multivariate analysis, and virtually all the tests of statistical significance appropriate for sample survey data. SPSS was originally developed for mainframe computers, but is increasingly used on personal computers in both DOS (SPSS/PC+) and Windows (SPSS for Windows) versions. Market researchers who require report-quality output, and researchers working with large government-produced statistical surveys and Censuses, sometimes use other, more efficient and more powerful software and programming languages. Sociologists have been reluctant to abandon SPSS in favour of more powerful packages which are easier to use. See also COMPUTER PACKAGES.