Penn State University Libraries - Focus on Assessment - Jun 28, 2010

Employees hone skills in statistical analysis

By Greg Crawford, director, Capital College Libraries

On June 8, 2010, the Library Assessment and Metrics Council sponsored an SPSS Workshop at
Penn State Harrisburg, which was co-taught by Greg Crawford and Glenn McGuigan. The
workshop was designed for University Libraries faculty and staff who wished to enhance their
skills for performing assessment or research activities. Thirteen University Libraries faculty and
staff members from across the campuses participated in this program. Several Penn State
Harrisburg Library faculty and staff joined the group for an excellent lunch. Many of the group
also toured the Penn State Harrisburg Library. The workshop introduced the use of SPSS for
performing basic functions such as inputting data, importing Excel files, recoding variables,
selecting cases, and performing a variety of analyses. Using both small and large data sets, basic
descriptive statistics such as frequency, mean, and standard deviation were discussed first. Then,
inferential statistics such as the t-test, ANOVA, correlation, and chi-square were introduced. By
the end of the class, the participants knew the differences between nominal and scale data, when
to use a t-test versus ANOVA, and the limitations of correlations and chi-squares. We hope to
offer this workshop at University Park in the future.