Using SPSS and PASW - Wikibooks, open books for an open world

This is one of the most helpful sites for SPSS questions: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Using_SPSS_and_PASW The text below is the introduction to this wikibook.

Using SPSS and PASW

SPSS or "Statistical Package for the Social Sciences" is a software program widely used in the social sciences for conducting statistical analysis of data. The company that produced the software was SPSS, Inc., but it was bought in 2008 by IBM. During the transition, the software package was renamed to PASW, but has since been renamed back to SPSS. GNU PSPP is a free alternative to SPSS^[1]. It appears to be very similar. This book is a rudimentary introduction to the use of SPSS for basic statistical analysis. The book is written with a focus on social scientific analysis in mind (particularly Sociology). Part I of the book covers basic operations within SPSS, from installing it to manipulating data. Part II illustrates how to do a variety of basic statistical tests. This book was written by beginners for beginners. More advanced users of SPSS should consider a different text or the manual that comes with the program itself. 

Throughout this text, example data are from a nationally representative sample of Genetic Counselors collected in 2006. The data have been anonymized such that individual Genetic Counselors are not identifiable. If you'd like to use the example data set to learn how to use SPSS, please contact the primary author via his talk page.