Author Description

According to Labor Secretary, Robert Reich, the most successful workers in the 21st century will be those who are able to understand various forms of information and produce meaning from it. Reich calls these people symbolic analysts, and they often use statistics. Yet, many individuals find statistics alienating, boring, intimidating, or as simply another hurdle to get over. Contrary to popular belief, though, quantitative research can be fun. This book is designed to help readers develop an appreciation, and hopefully an excitement, for quantitative inquiry. This book first orients readers to the approach researchers use to frame research questions and to the logic of establishing causal relations. Thereafter, the SPSS program is introduced. Readers are guided through examining data sets, univariate analysis, bivariate analysis, graphic analysis, and multivariate analysis. Two large data sets are included with the book. Anyone using SPSS, the statistics program for social science research.