Peer Review

Statistics Using PSPP

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Reviewed:: Dec 13, 2019 by Sociology

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Ratings

Overall Rating:

Content Quality:

Effectiveness:

Ease of Use:

Overview:

These exercises (15 in all) were written for instructors teaching an introductory class in statistics. They were written so each exercise is independent of the others and any one exercise can be used even if the other exercises are not used. Each exercise consists of four files all of which can be downloaded: the exercise itself as a Word (docx) file, notes to instructor as a Word (docx) file, the data file, and the syntax file necessary to carry out the exercise. You have permission to use these exercises and to revise them to fit your needs. Each exercise has a set of keywords to give you a quick view of what is covered. The exercises use PSPP, which is free statistical software sponsored by the Free Software Foundation.

Type of Material:

Assignments.

Recommended Uses:

This tool provides assignments for an Introduction to Statistics course. The homework can be done online and can be reviewed in class. There is a great deal of flexibility how the instructor wishes to include these assignments strategically. The very positive quality of these assignments is that they can be used by any student who downloads PSPP to their home computer. They can also apply these skills after graduation in their employment.

Technical Requirements:

Requires PSPP which can be downloaded for free from http://pspp.awardspace.com/ and ability to read Microsoft Office (docx) files.

Identify Major Learning Goals:

Develop both a working ability to run the following statistical tools and interpret the results:

Exercise Using PSPP to Explore Levels of Measurement
Exercise Using PSPP to Explore Measures of Central Tendency and Dispersion
Exercise Using PSPP to Explore Measures of Skewness and Kurtosis
Exercise Using PSPP to Explore Hypothesis Testing - One-Sample t Test
Exercise Using PSPP to Explore Hypothesis Testing - Independent-Samples t Test
Exercise Using PSPP to Explore Hypothesis Testing – Paired-Samples t Test
Exercise Using PSPP to Explore Hypothesis Testing – One-Way Analysis of Variance
Exercise Using PSPP to Explore Crosstabulation
Exercise Using PSPP to Explore Chi Square
Exercise Using PSPP to Explore Measures of Association
Exercise Using PSPP to Explore Spuriousness
Exercise Using PSPP to Explore Correlation
Exercise Using PSPP to Explore Bivariate Linear Regression
Exercise Using PSPP to Explore Multiple Linear Regression
Exercise Using PSPP to Explore Dummy Variable Regression

Target Student Population:

Undergraduate introductory statistics course or review for faculty/graduate students.

Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:

Basic computer skills and some competence in using Microsoft Office or equivalent software. The exercises introduce students/faculty to PSPP which is an open statistical software package similar to SPSS.

Content Quality

Rating:
Strengths:: The exercises are explained in a step-by-step fashion including a demonstration and explanation of the resulting statistics. The data set used in these exercises is gss14_subset_for_classes_STATISTICS_pspp.sav which is a subset of the 2014 General Social Survey. Some of the variables were recoded to make them easier to use and some new variables were created. The data were weighted according to the instructions from the National Opinion Research Center.
Concerns:: The content will need to be supported using the guidance of the instructor.

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

Rating:
Strengths:: The exercises can be used to supplement an Introduction to Statistics course. If mastered, the student can be confident they have a practical overview of basic statistics including examples. The exercises seem to be relevant to spark an interest from students.
Concerns:: This should be looked at as a supplemental resource, not a stand alone course for students. PSPP was updated in 2018. These assignments were last updated in 2016 according to the webpage. The instructor should be alerted to any changes in PSPP.

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

Rating:
Strengths:: The webpage is principly located on one page which includes the description of the assignments, lists each independent exercise, files which help both instructor and students to understand the statistical concepts, their use, and how to enter and analyze the data. Like any resource requiring the analysis of data, it requires a little bit more knowledge to download and analyze the appropriate files. There are informative documents on the site that helps instructors guide their students through the process.
Concerns:: At the bottom of the page, there are links to free software -- Word viewer, PDF viewer, etc. It would have been nice to have a link to the PSPP software.

Other Issues and Comments:: Please update or include instructions of any key changes in PSPP since 2016.
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