The IBM SPSS Statistics overview in my last post included several references to business analytics. While many businesses use statistical analysis to increase profitability, improve processes, and grow their customer bases, I wanted to share some other uses of SPSS to further your understanding of what the software is and what you can do with it.

Looking at the work of UA researchers, we can see that SPSS is used for statistical analysis in many disciplines.

Click to view a larger version of the image.

The above image depicts the subjects associated with items in the Dissertations & Theses @ University of Alabama database that include the keyword “SPSS.” The subjects most often associated with items containing the “SPSS” keyword appear larger, and those assigned less often appear smaller. The image in this post is pretty small, so I’ll give you a minute to view the full size version here.

Subjects related to education appear most prominently; school administration and higher education are the subjects most often associated with SPSS in UA researchers’ dissertations and theses, followed by several other education-related areas. However, quite a few additional subjects are also represented, including public health‎, social work‎, psychology‎, marketing‎, political science, sociology‎, gender and race studies‎, criminal justice‎, communication and information sciences‎, nursing‎, anthropology‎, language and linguistics, psychology‎, and many others.

Search the Dissertations & Theses @ University of Alabama database to see specific examples of dissertation and thesis research in which SPSS was used. Here’s a sample search to get you started.