SPSS for Starters

This small book contains all statistical tests that are relevant for starters on SPSS. Each test is explained using a data example from clinical practice, including every step in SPSS and the main tables of results with an accompanying text with interpretations of the results and hints convenient for data reporting, i.e., scientific clinical articles and poster presentations..

In order to facilitate the use of this cookbook the data files of the examples are made available by the publisher on the Internet.

For investigators who wish to perform their own data analyses from the very start the book can be used as a step-by-step guideline. They can enter their separate data or enter their entire data file, e.g., from Excel, simply by opening an Excel file in SPSS.

SPSS statistical software is a user-friendly statistical software with many help and tutor pages. However, for the novices on SPSS an even more basic approach is welcome. The book is meant for this very purpose, and can be used without the help of a teacher.

The authors are well-aware that this cookbook contains a minimal amount of text and a maximal technical details, but we believe that this property will not refrain students from mastering the SPSS software systematic, and that, instead, it will even be a help to that aim. Yet, we recommend that it be used together with the textbook “Statistics Applied to Clinical Trials” by Cleophas et al, 4th Edition, 2009, Springer Dordrecht.