I am not teaching my Master students statistics, but Excel seems easier(?) to use since available in their laptops, and frequently used by the previous students. I told them that SPSS is a more powerful stat tool, and that Excel might be used in basic stat operations only. What do you think? Is it symptomatic of a certain stat phobia ?
NB: There is no SPSS, R, Stata trainings in our department. Students sometimes have to pay statiticians around 30 euros to get their data analysed by an expert, or pay for a 50 euros training session in a remote city. That's why the only way to get rid of their duty (thesis) they rely on normal, usual stat tools.
Depends on the type of analysis and type of Excel add-ons. Base Excel is absolutely fine for simple statistical tests and models, as long as one knows what they are doing. Some custom spreadsheets and add-ons provide more sophisticated functionality, but I would be cautious with them as there might not be a guarantee that they do calculate stuff correctly.
There are many commentaries online that advise against the use of Excel (or other spreadsheets) for serious statistical analysis. This webpage from the Dept of Biostatistics at Vanderbilt University provides links to many of them.
- https://biostat.app.vumc.org/wiki/Main/ExcelProblems
HTH.
Excel is for everyone, but SPSS is necessary when we need to analyse complex data in a more efficient, meaningful and elaborate way.
In fact, Excel is like Wikipedia reference in comparison with either journal article and/or conference peer reviewed references. Using Excel in postgraduate analysis is nonsensical, but using SPSS gives both your supervisor and examiner some trust in your findings. Don't forget that we can also manually compute and analyze data, which is equally time consuming and prone to errors. While would you want to trek to deliver a message, when you have either a car or a phone to do so? SPSS is better than Excel for analysis. You need to learn how to use it, in order to analyze your data in a professional manner.
Hello Mathew Egu. Users of R, SAS, Stata, and other major stats packages might object to your assertion that "SPSS is necessary when we need to analyse complex data in a more efficient, meaningful and elaborate way". Did you really mean SPSS or some other recognized statistical software package, perhaps? ;-)
Thank you for your response Bruce Weaver . You are absolutely right. However, I considered the fact that the use of SPSS is what Kassim Boudjelal Safir is emphasizing here. Personally, I used E-Views to conduct the statistical analyses for my Master's dissertation Research The strategic importance of regional economic integration to...
.However, at the moment, while I have access to a free school SPSS + R program, due to the nature of my PhD thesis data and analyses I ended up buying Stata to conduct a Multilevel Modelling (MLM) procedure. Despite that, I will use SmartPLS to create a path analysis, conduct a principal component analysis and regression validation, as well as conduct a validity/reliability measurement in my research methodology chapter.
So, I meant SPSS or some other recognized statistical software package. Please, take note of my correction.
Thank you for your remarks Mathew and Bruce. I have to clarify one more point. There is no SPSS, R, Stata, E-Views trainings in our department. Students sometimes have to pay statiticians around 30 euros to get their data analysed by an expert, or pay for a 50 euros training session in a remote city. Really discouraging for most of them. That's why the only way "to get rid of" their duty (thesis) was -and is- to rely on a basic, usual statistical tool like Excel.
Hello Kassim Boudjelal Safir. I would be very surprised if one of the following free menu-driven packages could not do anything your students are currently doing in Excel:
- https://www.jamovi.org/
- https://jasp-stats.org/
See this RG discussion for more info.
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Has_anyone_used_JASP_and_Jamovi
HTH.
SPSS is professional statistical analysis software. Excel is spreadsheet software for data manipulation. For best-analyzing data statistically, SPSS is the good one among many choices. That being said, we can carry out many statistical analyses via Excel. You might check out Dewani's (2020) elaboration on the 10 statistical functions using Excel.
Dewani, R. (2020, September 27). 10 statistical functions in Excel every analytics professional should know. Analytics Vidhya. https://www.analyticsvidhya.com/blog/2020/09/10-statistical-functions-excel-analytics/
Best,
Well honestly if we bring money into the equation i am still puzzled people use spss which probably they are going to use clicking here and there, aka making analyses not reproducible
R is free i still don't understand why i would have to pay microsoft to use excel to do statistics *horrifies*
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