Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS)

In 1968, Normal Nie and Dale Bent, Stanford doctoral candidates, and Hadlai Hull, a Stanford graduate with a master's in business administration, developed a software system that allowed for the transformation of raw data into information using statistical applications. Their creation, the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), was not developed with the intent of mass distribution. However, its appeal quickly caught on and, soon after its development, it was in high demand in universities across the United States. This demand further increased after McGraw-Hill published the first SPSS user's manual in 1970. SPSS incorporated in 1975.

SPSS, Inc. offered the first mainframe statistical package to appear on a personal computer (in the mid-1980s) and, in 1992, was the first organization to release a statistical package for use with the Microsoft [Page 844]Windows operating system. In the 21st century, SPSS, Inc. now offers a broad array of products and services to meet the diverse needs of its customers, both in the United States and abroad. The flagship product for SPSS, Inc. is SPSS Base, available for both Windows and Apple platforms. This product provides survey researchers with a powerful and user-friendly data management and statistical analysis package. SPSS Base allows the researcher to generate both descriptive and bivariate statistics. Further, with SPSS Base, the survey analyst can run predictive analytics such as factor and regression analyses.

A number of add-on modules and stand-alone products further enhance the capabilities of SPSS Base. Add-on modules allow for advanced multivariate analysis of survey data, including data derived from surveys with complex sample designs. Included are modules that allow for generalized linear models, hierarchical linear models, survival analysis, and categorical regression. SPSS, Inc. stand-alone products serve to add power to the data management and analysis system provided in SPSS Base. Stand-alone products are available to help with all phases of the survey process, including sample selection and data collection, data management and cleaning, data analysis, and data dissemination.