I'm a little unclear on what the original poster's issue is. The situations I deal with is similar to Manza's and we hold lab sessions in computer labs where SPSS is available. I have avoided using the "studentware version" that comes packaged with some stat textbooks because they don't allow one to use syntax (correct me if it is now possible to use syntax) and I teach how to use syntax for data/program documentation, transformation, and analysis. The "point and click" method, I believe, causes students to develop bad habits (e.g., not documenting how an analysis was done) which they will have to unlearn when they start doing serious analyses in SPSS.
However, if one's college does not use or can not afford to put SPSS on computers in their computer labs (or buy licenses to the new "cloud based" service SPSS has been promoting -- anyone used this?) then I would suggest moving to a package like "R" for your more serious students and Excel with statistical add-ins for your less serious students. Unfortunately, learning "R" is not easy (for faculty or student and there is massive proactive interference if you have previously learned 4 or 5 stat packages), the "R Commander" GUI may help in simple analyses but one is going to having to learn to write code to do serious stuff. I think that as SPSS becomes a more business-centric company, it has less and less incentive to give a break to academic institutions (that is, if they don't have a significant business school present) and most colleges and universities will drop SPSS, perhaps move over to SAS (which is cheaper to license), but in all likelihood go to "R" because it is freeware and many graduate programs are now using "R" in their statistics courses -- "R" will probably become the standard in statistical analysis because its price warms a university administrators heart (i.e., free). -Mike Palij New York University m...@nyu.edu --------------------- Original Message ---------------------------------- On Tue, 25 Sep 2012 03:34:43 -0700, Louis Manza wrote: We don't worry about the student version here; the school buys the full version, loads it on campus PCs, then students use the software on those same machines. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -From: Musselman, Robin [mailto:rmussel...@lccc.edu] Sent: Monday, September 24, 2012 10:32 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: [tips] Status of SPSS This semester we have had quite a to-do about getting SPSS for our students in their statistics and methods classes. It appears that first Pearson and now Cengage has cut their relationship with SPSS. As a community college, obviously we need to teach what the transfer institutions are asking us to teach and up until now it has been SPSS. We are wondering if these changes in terms of getting student editions will have any impact on the use of SPSS at four year colleges/universities. Any thoughts? Robin --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=20674 or send a blank email to leave-20674-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
