Book Review: "Thank you! In his book Quantitative Data Analysis A critical introduction using SPSS, Professor Paul Connolly has produced a masterpiece for researchers who 'Don’t do numbers', and have found themselves having amassed a desk full of quantitative data now needing analysis …Empathetic, incredulous, ingenious! ... I have no hesitation in recommending this book to students and researchers who need a working knowledge of using SPSS."

ESCalate, Higher Education Academy
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This book provides a refreshing and user-friendly guide to quantitative data analysis in education for students and researchers. It assumes absolutely no prior knowledge of quantitative methods or statistics. Beginning with the very basics, it provides the reader with the knowledge and skills necessary to be able to undertake routine quantitative data analysis to a level expected of published research.

Rather than focusing on teaching statistics through mathematical formulae, the book places an emphasis on using SPSS to gain a real feel for the data and an intuitive grasp of the main concepts and techniques involved. Drawing extensively upon up-to-date and relevant examples, the reader will be encouraged to think critically about quantitative research and its potential as well as its limitations in relation to education.

Packed with helpful features, this book:

• Provides illustrated step-by-step guides showing how to use SPSS, with plenty of exercises to encourage the reader to practice and consolidate their new skills
• Makes extensive use of real-life educational datasets derived from national surveys in the US and UK to illustrate key points and to bring the material to life
• Has a companion website that contains all of the educational datasets used in the book to download as well as comprehensive answers to exercises and a range of other useful resources that are regularly updated
• The book will therefore appeal not only to undergraduate and postgraduate students but also to more established and seasoned educational researchers and lecturers and professors who have tended to avoid or shy away from quantitative methods.

Paul Connolly is Professor of Education at Queen’s University Belfast and has gained extensive experience researching and publishing in education. He has taught quantitative methods using SPSS for the last ten years to undergraduate sociology students and more recently students on masters programmes in education as well as the taught doctorate programme (EdD).

Contents

Introduction

Who is this book for and what is it about?
What makes this book different?
Key themes underpinning the book
Structure of the book
Companion website
Differing versions of SPSS
And finally, what this book expects of you!

1. Getting Started with SPSS

Introduction
Understanding what a dataset is
Opening an existing dataset in SPSS
Creating your own dataset
Conclusions

2. Exploring, Displaying and Summarising Data

Introduction
Different types of variable
Displaying and summarising scale variables
Displaying and summarising nominal and ordinal variables
Conclusions

3. Analyzing Relationships Between Variables

Introduction
Preparing variables and the dataset for analysis
Analyzing relationships between two variables
Analyzing trends over time
Conclusions

4. Good Practice in Presenting Findings

Introduction
Generating and Editing Tables in SPSS
Generating and editing charts in SPSS
Chart Builder
Conclusions

5. Confidence Intervals and Statistical Significance

Introduction
Sources of bias in samples
Confidence intervals
The concept of statistical significance
Testing for statistical significance
Conclusions

6. Conducting Statistical Tests and Calculating Effect Sizes

Introduction
Selecting the appropriate statistical test
Chi-Square Test
Mann-Whitney U Test
Kruskal-Wallis Test
Independent Samples T-Test
One-Way ANOVA
Spearman and Pearson Correlations
Wilcoxon Test
Related Samples T-Test
Analyzing experimental research designs
Conclusions

7. Where Next?

Introduction
Develop your understanding of the nature of quantitative data and how it is generated
Face your demons and have a closer look at the statistics behind the concepts covered in this book
Move onto more advanced quantitative data analysis
techniques involving three or more variables
If you’re still keen for more, think seriously about enrolling on a statistics course or programme
Above all, make sure you enjoy yourself!
References

Appendices

Defining variables in SPSS versions 9.0 and earlier
Editing charts in SPSS versions 12.0 and earlier

Further Details

ISBN: 9780415372978 (hbk) 9780415372985 (pbk)

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