Understanding Political Science Statistics using SPSS

Peter Galderisi has taught political science methods and statistics for more than three decades, and is currently a lecturer and local internship director in the Political Science Department at the University of California, San Diego. Previously, Galderisi was a Professor or Visiting Professor at Utah State, UCLA, UC Santa Cruz, and Cal State Fullerton. He specializes in U.S. political parties, campaigns and elections, American political development, interest groups, and election law.

"Walking step by step through analysis of real datasets, this guide takes the guesswork out of SPSS for students, and takes the work out of an example-based approach for their professors. Real datasets � such as the ANES DW Nominate Scores � aren't easy to for students to work with, but Galderisi's clear approach takes the guesswork and confusion out of it." � Dan Cassino, Fairleigh Dickinson University�In courses on research methods, instructors often find themselves spending just as much time teaching students how to use a particular statistical program, such as SPSS, as they do on the course material. This manual helps address this problem by teaching students how to use SPSS and providing built-in exercises for practice or homework, so instructors can spend more class time focused on the course material.� � Will Hatcher, Eastern Kentucky University�Galderisi�s manual presents a wealth of information and many opportunities for students to learn how to conduct political research, including step-by-step walkthroughs and student exercises, providing the program and analytical skills that every student needs to become a proficient researcher.� � Mack Shelley, Iowa State University

• Chapter 1: General Overview: Introduction to Using SPSS for Data Analysis 1.1 SPSS File Types 1.2 First Steps Chapter 2: Setting Up the SPSS Data File for Analysis 2.1. GET FILE 2.2. WEIGHT Chapter 3: Commonly Used SPSS Commands—Operationalization 3.1. RECODE 3.2. COMPUTE 3.3. IF 3.4. SELECT IF Chapter 4: Commonly Used SPSS Commands—Data Analysis 4.1. FREQUENCIES 4.2. MEANS 4.3. T-TEST 4.4. NPAR: Tests for Proportions 4.5. CROSSTABS 4.6. REGRESSION Chapter 5: Executing Your Syntax and Saving Your Output Appendix A: Codebooks for Data Files Appendix B: An Example of a Term-Wide Set of Computer Exercises-ANES2012A