Welcome to the first-ever Quantitative Methods Blog as part of the Research Methods and Statistics channel!
I am Dr. Daniel J. Smith, and I have been with GCU since 2005, and have taught both online and in the classroom with the College of Doctoral Studies, as well as with GCU's College of Business. Please check out my DC Network bio for more information about my background and interests!
In this blog, I will be sharing some of my thoughts on some topics that you have told me are of particular importance to you - both during the four in-person Residencies in which I have taught, as well as in the doctoral courses that I have taught, and even what I have learned during my years teaching Statistics to undergraduate and graduate students at GCU. For each blog, I will focus on a specific topic, and will consequently provide you with some ideas to get you started in your quantitative analysis journey! What makes a blog unique is that it is not a static forum - please do provide me with your input so that I can most effectively meet your needs as doctoral learners. Of course, this blog will be supplemented by quantitative webinars and other resources to help you.
I have chosen SPSS to kick off this blog series. If you attended one of my four in-person Residency doctoral presentations, then you already have an idea of the power of this statistical software. SPSS stands for "Statistical Package for the Social Sciences," and it has a very long history of development with the first version launched in the late-1960's. Today, we are up to version 19 and it is both more powerful and easier to you than ever! As GCU doctoral learners, you have access to a free, limited time and limited number of user, trial download of the software. After this trial period, you should be able to purchase the program at a very minimal student price. The instructions on how to download and install SPSS are on the DC Network with screenshots and the license code - just do a search of SPSS on the DC Network to find the Word doc. It works on both PC's and MAC's. In September, we will be offering our first-ever quantitative webinar, and the first topic will be SPSS. Even if you don't plan on using SPSS for a year (or even more) it might be a good idea to start practicing with it before you actually have to do your quantitative research!
In regard to what SPSS can do for you and your research, it is the gold standard of statistical packages on the market and one of the most widely used statistical programs in industry and academia. It will therefore lend a certain methodological credibility to your work. We will go over what these terms mean in upcoming webinars and in other places here on the DC Network, but it will offer you the ability to do both descriptive and inferential statistics. As you may know, descriptive statistics are graphs/charts/tables that show data in a summarized and easy-to-understand format. Inferential statistics includes correlational analysis as well as t-tests that determine if there are statistical differences in the average of a target variable between the pre/post results of one group, or between two or more groups. Confused so far? That's normal, and hopefully resources available to you here on the DC Network will get you on your way to learning more about these topics!
In the upcoming weeks, I will offer blogs about 1) the critical importance of quantitative analysis in organizations today, 2) more about descriptive and inferential statistics, 3) some resources for you to learn more about quantitative research methods, and 4) even perhaps some good examples of powerful, yet straightforward, quantitative research work that might be of relevance to you.
Stay tuned!
Daniel J. Smith, MA, MBA, PhD
480-861-8851
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