IBM SPSS is a commercially available copyrighted software, and it’s not available for free.
If you want to get a full package of SPSS as a student for free, but do not know how to achieve that.
In this article, you will see all you need to know about the installation of IBM SPSS software for free.
As an education website, we’ve been in the business of helping students seek solutions for their analytical goals and make evidence-based decisions.
This is one of those articles that gives a student insight into what they seek. Just read on.
As a student, you can either get the free trial and enjoy a 30 days free usage of IBM SPSS.
Note that this IBM SPSS free trial has major restrictions (one free trial per computer per year) to those who register.
Once the 30 days are over, they’ll automatically deduct the equivalent amount from your account.
Or you can contact a vendor like OntheHub.com to get a discount amount of SPSS.
As a student on OntheHub, you will enjoy a 97% discount and end up paying $39.95 USD per month.
For a Faculty, you will enjoy 78% to pay $259.99 USD per month.
Stay with us as we show you the hack around getting a full package of IBM SPSS for free in 2024.
Table of contents
What is SPSS and its Features?
SPSS typically stands for “Statistical Package for the Social Sciences.”
It is an IBM tool and was originally launched in 1968 by SPSS Inc., but was acquired by IBM in 2009.
Various researchers mainly use this one software package for statistical analysis of data and complex statistical data analysis.
SPSS is mainly used in the following areas like healthcare, survey companies, education researchers, data miners, marketing & health researchers, and many others.
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Features of SPSS
Here are specific features of SPSS for students:
- All data in SPSS is stored in SAV format. This makes the process of manipulating, analyzing, and pulling data very simple.
- SPSS helps you to get data from critical data uniquely. It is done through trend analysis, assumptions, predictive models, and some characteristics of SPSS.
- SPSS offers users in-depth statistical capabilities for analyzing the exact outcome.
- It helps to get data management system and editing tools easily
- SPSS is a tool that helps you to design, plot, report, and present features more clearly.
- SPSS is easy for you to learn, use and apply.
Aside from running statistical analysis of data, the SPSS software also provides features of data management. This allows the user to do a selection, create data, perform file a, etc.
Another feature of SPSS is data documentation. Basically, this feature saves a metadata dictionary along with the data file.
This metadata dictionary acts as a centralized repository of information about data such as meaning, relationships to other data, origin, usage, and format.
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What is SPSS Software Used for?
SPSS software is used to perform quantitative analysis and complete a statistical package based on a point-and-click interface.
There are various statistical methods you can use in SPSS, and they are as follows:
- Descriptive statistics, including methodologies of SPSS, are frequencies, cross-tabulation, and descriptive ratio statistics, which are very useful.
- Bivariate statistics include methodologies like analysis of variance (ANOVA), means, correlation, nonparametric tests, etc.
- Prediction for various data for identifying groups and including methodologies such as cluster analysis, factor analysis, etc.
- Numeral outcome prediction, such as linear regression.
As its name is, SPSS statistics software is used to perform only statistical operations.
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The Core Functions of SPSS
SPSS offers four programs that help researchers with their complex data analysis problems.
#1. Statistics Program
SPSS’s statistics program gives a large no of basic statistical functionality, some of which include frequencies, cross-tabulation, bivariate statistics, etc.
#2. Modeler Program
With the SPSS’s Modeler program, researchers can build and validate predictive models with the help of advanced statistical procedures.
#3. Text Analytics for Surveys Program
It gives robust feedback analysis, which in turn gets a vision for the actual plan.
SPSS’s Text Analytics for Surveys program helps survey administrators uncover powerful insights from responses to open-ended survey questions.
#4. Visualization Designer
Researchers found this visual designer data to create a wide variety of visuals, like density charts and radial box plots with ease.
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How Does SPSS Work for Students?
SPSS software helps researchers to perform quantitative analysis.
Basically, SPSS software can read and write data from other statistical packages, databases, and spreadsheets.
Here is how SPSS works.
When entering data into SPSS software, you’ve to click on “variable view.”
The variable view enables the user to customize it by data type and consists of the following headings: Name, Type, Width, Decimals, Label, Values, Missing, Columns, Align, and Measures.
These headings enable the user to categorize or characterize the data.
SPSS, as the name suggests, is software for performing statistical procedures in the social sciences field.
Hence, researchers use SPSS in social science fields such as psychology, where statistical techniques are on a large scale.
In such a situation, techniques like cross-tabulation, t-test, chi-square test, etc., are available in the “analyze” menu of the software.
Another option that exists in the software is the “split file,” which you’ll find in the “data” menu.
Researchers who are performing comparative studies find this option very useful.
The SPSS software also has a technique as ” missing value analysis.”
This technique grants the user access to fill in missing blanks in order to create better models to estimate data. Practically, this helps in making better decisions about any data.
Most importantly, the analysis provides the user with procedures for data management and preparation.
In addition, SPSS involves some complex inferential and multivariate statistical procedures such as factor and discriminant analysis, Analysis of variance (ANOVA), etc.
Indeed, SPSS is a good tool for researchers, but there’s a major limitation.
The major limitation of SPSS is that users can’t use it to analyze a large data set. This affects researchers in the medical field.
So in such fields, the researcher can use SAS instead of SPSS to analyze the clinical data set.
Is SPSS Free for Students?
IBM SPSS software is commercially available with copyright, and it’s not available for free.
As a student, you can only have access to SPSS via your university at no cost or you sign up for the free trial version.
If the above is not an option, you can also get the software from sites such as On The Hub (https://onthehub.com/).
They’re IBM vendors with authorization to sell SPSS at a cheaper rate for students or faculty leases for 6- or 12-month periods.
Meanwhile, a “similar” package, PSPP, has the same capabilities as the base SPSS package, including the same file formats.
And this is available for free. Just click https://www.gnu.org/software/pspp/ to download the software.
Here are two sites where you can get statistical analysis software for a free or free trial:
Is there a Free Version of SPSS for Students?
Yes, there’s a free trial version of SPSS for students to use for 30 days.
You can enjoy full SPSS Statistics capabilities including all add-ons.
IBM SPSS software offers advanced techniques in an easy-to-use package to help you find new opportunities, improve efficiency, and minimize risk.
Note: This IBM SPSS free trial has major restrictions (one free trial per computer per year) for those who register.
Once the 30 days are over, they’ll automatically deduct the equivalent amount from your account.
How Much is SPSS for Students?
The subscription plan of IBM SPSS is $99.00 per authorized user per month.
This is the most popular plan for students that don’t want to go for the GradPack and Faculty Packs.
Meanwhile, there’s another plan which they call “Perpetual and Term Licenses.” You can choose between Base, Standard, Professional, and Premium packages plus other multiple options to customize your configuration.
So, if you seek where to get support for IBM SPSS Student Version or Graduate Pack software, you have to contact a vendor
Basically, you can get SPSS from some vendors that give student and faculty pricing and purchase at a cheaper rate.
See below for most IBM SPSS vendors:
- Hearne Software (Extended support)
- StudentDiscounts.com (Extended support)
- OnTheHub (Extended support)
- JourneyEd.com (Standard support)
- ThinkEDU (Standard support)
- Studica (Standard support)
See below for IBM SPSS Statistics Discounts for Students & Faculty.
IBM® SPSS® Discounts for Students & Faculty
OntheHub.com has 6- or 12-month rental licenses available to verify students and faculty.
This IBM SPSS software is available for Windows and Mac.
As a Faculty, you will enjoy 78% to pay $259.99 USD per month.
As a student, you will enjoy a 97% discount and end up paying $39.95 USD per month.
If you’re looking for previous versions, you can still order IBM® SPSS® Statistics 24, 25, and 26 through OnTheHub.
Both students and faculty can take great comfort in knowing that the software they use matches course materials.
As a student, you will enjoy a 96% discount and end up paying $42.99 USD per month.
How Can Students Get SPSS for Free?
There’s no specific way to get SPSS for free.
As a student, you can either get the free trial and enjoy a 30 days free usage of IBM SPSS.
Or you can contact a vendor to get a discount amount of SPSS.
Just follow the method stated above and get your SPSS free version ready. Or go to the SPSS website and click Free SPSS Trials.
Alternatives to IBM SPSS
There is open-sourced clones of SPSS. Their data files and scripts are cross-compatible.
Although they’re comparatively small in size, it’s free for download (size under 100 MB).
Their output graphs are not that customizable and nice as SPSS, yet they’re worth trying if you can’t afford an SPSS license.
Here are alternatives to IBM SPSS:
- PSPP – http://www.gnu.org/software/pspp/
- R Package – www.r-project.org.
- SSP – http://economics-files.pomona.edu/GarySmith/StatSite/SSP.html
- Jamovi – https://www.jamovi.org/
- JASP – https://jasp-stats.org/
Conclusion
Yes, it’s true that IBM SPSS software is commercially available with copyright, and it’s not available for free.
However, you can download it from your university website (if available) for free or sign up for the free trial version.
If the above is not conducive for you, you can contact a vendor like OntheHub to get IBM SPSS for a discount price.
References
- educba.com – What is SPSS?
- alchemer.com – What is SPSS and How Does it Benefit Survey Data Analysis?
- statisticssolutions.com – SPSS Statistics Help