SPSS v PSPP

In a few weeks I'm going to have access to more language testing data that you can shake a whole copse full of sticks at, so I'm sharpening the number crunching skills with Bachman (2004) and its companion workbook.  The latter relies on SPSS, so I went in search and downloaded a 21 day version of PASW v18.  When the 21 days ran out, I thought, well, it's a fair cop, and prepared to put my hand in my pocket.  FFS.  I spent an entire morning in a vicious IBM loop, credit card in hand, looking for an licence authorization code.  Forget about it.  It was like trying to find a shop located 1000 feet underground, with no access from the surface.

Fortunately, an old chum had put me in the direction of comparable open-source software.  This morning I've downloaded and installed (in about 2 minutes) PSPP .  I haven't worked with it yet, but it looks like it does everything that PASW v18 does - everything that a language tester wants of it, anyhow.

Or to put it another way, SPSS seems to have become a pile of shite since IBM got its hands on it.  Go open source, kids, it's the way ahead for non-numpties.




Bachman, LF (2004). Statistical analyses for language assessment. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge
University Press.

Comments

  1. AnonymousThu Nov 11, 01:22:00 am GMT

    Well, that's a pretty broad statement.
    1. The current version of SPSS, now called IBM SPSS Statistics is 19. It was released in August, 2010, and V18 is no longer sold.

    2. PSPP doesn't remotely approach the functionality of SPSS Statistics. While it apparently handles the basics, there are many, many features not available, especially in the area of statistical procedures. If you are doing linguistic things, you might want to find out whether PSPP supports Unicode (I don't know.) SPSS does. I also doubt that it has the graphical capabilities of SPSS Statistics.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Garry NixonThu Nov 11, 08:35:00 am GMT

    "V18" is no longer sold". Indeed. If v19 were so wonderful why not make earlier versions available at a price affordable to students?

    You say that PSPP "doesn't remotely approach the functionality" of v19, yet go on to admit you don't know what it actually does.

    What's your angle, Anonymous? Does IBM really pay people to sit in a cubicle and attempt to rubbish adverse blogging?

    Anyhoo, I'll be the judge of whether PSPP can handle my research, thank you, and I'll blog all about it here.

    ReplyDelete
  3. drawjerkyMon Nov 15, 01:32:00 pm GMT

    It maybe like the GIMP and Photoshop. I know loads of people who rubbish the GIMP for whatever reason saying Photoshop is better etc blahblahblah.... but so far the only thing that I've found that the Gimp doesn't do (yet?) is batch process. Maybe I've never used PS to it's 100% capability... Who has? Important thing is... does it do the job?... and I bet the answer is yes..

    ReplyDelete
  4. Garry NixonMon Nov 15, 02:57:00 pm GMT

    Coincidentally, I began working with PSPP this morning. If I ever reach a point when its "functionality" is inadequate, or I need fancier graphics, or find that its shortcomings with regard to unicode are letting me down, well, I'll tell you.

    And the people who compare GIMP unfavourably with PS are amateur photographers, the sort of fucktards who confuse £££s spent on a DSLR with photographic ability. Flickr's infested with them. Like I said to our anonymous IBM troll: if the latest version really is such a fantastic advance on the older ones, making them a bit crap by comparison, then freeware them. The truth is, the newer versions of all of these popular softwares are mere tweaks, designed to part numpties from their hard-earned cash.

    It's been said before, payment for the latest software is a tax levied on the stupid by the greedy.

    ReplyDelete

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