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So my job is in qual research, but I have enough of a stat background that my boss wants to start bringing me into the quant side, but he says that I need to learn SPSS first. The company can get me a licenses for program, but we have no internal process for training someone into SPSS (we've always hired experienced quant people before this).

He doesn't think a class is really necessary since our clients don't really require anything particularly complicated, but just about any book is fine, provided it's a good one.

Does anyone have any recs?

I hate to do this to you, but there are so many free courses, including video courses on itunes, usually available from universities, that I don't recommend a book at all:

https://www.google.com/search?q=SPSS+learn

Learn as much as you can from these, and they will point you to books that will be useful as a reference and for more advanced techniques.

Don't waste money on a book for beginners, you'll never need those chapters again.

You had me at "free".

Too bad you couldn't use R. Bigger learning curve, and less exportable reports, but it's free and more flexible (arguably).

fade said:

Too bad you couldn't use R. Bigger learning curve, and less exportable reports, but it's free and more flexible (arguably).

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I've heard that, but the quants here are big fans of SPSS, and I have no basis to argue with them about it.

The manual I use is one that was written by one of my professors for her students with no actual publication. Because of that, I wouldn't feel comfortable sharing it without her permission. It is, however, my bible when it comes to data analysis.

You definitely don't want to use R if you're not already familiar with data analysis software, and/or have a background in programming. It his incredibly robust, but that won't mean anything if you can't learn how to use it.

fade said:

Too bad you couldn't use R. Bigger learning curve, and less exportable reports, but it's free and more flexible (arguably).

Click to expand...

I am spending my personal development time learning R this year. It is seriously overkill for what I need. Sadly, our license for SPSS is under kill...