computer packages

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computer packages Quantitative sociologists now have access to a huge variety of statistical packages for managing and analysing large-scale data-sets. The most widely used of these is probably SPSS (the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences). However, newer and more user-friendly packages (such as Minitab) are becoming increasingly popular, as are more powerful packages which perform specialized tasks such as complex loglinear analyses. Examples of the latter include the interactive program GLIM (Generalized Linear Modelling), which will also fit a variety of regression models, and the large variety of programs for multi-dimensional scaling (MINISSA, INDSCAL, M-D-SCAL, and so forth). Many methods texts now include detailed information about the authors, sources, and capabilities of competing packages.

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