Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics  Research > Food Security Group > Survey Research Training > Short Course

SSPS Survey Research Short Course Instructions

Description

The Cross-Sectional analysis short course training materials were first developed as a tool to assist researchers who were developing market information systems as part of our ongoing Food Security project in various African countries. The tutorial is available in versions for SPSS 7.5 and SPSS 10 in English, French and Portuguese. The tutorial touches on the following topics:

  • basic statistics (frequencies, descriptives, for one or multiple variables)
  • table lookups to convert from local to metric units
  • data management using the concept of levels of data, e.g. aggregation to higher levels
  • publication ready tables
  • analysis of multiple response questions

The data used for this tutorial is actual data collected from the "Socio Economic Survey of SmallHolder in the Province of Nampula, Mozambique" in 1992. The cross-sectional training requires approximately 6 hours to complete, two hours for each module.

The Time Series analysis tutorial is available in versions for SPSS 7.5 and SPSS 10, in English only. This tutorial touches on the following topics:

  • basic statistics
  • data management skills (table lookups and aggregations)
  • use non-SPSS files

The time series part of the tutorial covers:

  • data cleaning
  • preparing graphs and tables, one exercise focuses for example on how show weekly price percentage differences for different markets and agricultural commodities
  • seasonal and margin analysis, trends and regressions
  • calculating prices in real terms

This tutorial uses data from the Market Information System in Mali over the time period from 1982 to 1995. Since there are ten time series modules, this tutorial may take up to one week to complete.

Notes on Versions of SPSS Software

If you are using SPSS 8.x, 9.x, or 11.x, please note the following:

  • SPSS 8.x users should use the short courses for 7.5. The only changes in syntax across these versions involves the addition of new commands (most prominently, IGRAPH in SPSS 8.x), which are not included in the sample sessions. There may be some changes to sub-commands scattered across the many existing procedures but they are very few. The same is true for the menu options between 7.5.x and 8.x; most changes are to accommodate new procedures.
  • For SPSS 9.x users, SPSS did change the Statistics menu extensively, calling it "Analyze," and reordering some of the choices. The documentation for the short courses were developed with pre-SPSS 9.x menus, and might be confusing for SPSS 9.x users. The sample sessions may still be used but extra effort is required by the user to translate the pre-SPSS 9.x Statistics commands to work with the new "Analyze" menu commands, in most cases, simply by replacing the word "Statistics" with "Analyze".
  • SPSS 11.x users should use the short courses for SPSS 10.

The Food Security project is a cooperative agreement between the US Agency for International Development, Global Bureau, Economic Growth Center, Office of Agriculture and Food Security and MSU Department of Agricultural Economics.

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