SPSS is a common software used by data analysts to conduct statistical data analysis. The designation SPSS is short for Statistical Package for the Social Sciences. While no longer just used in social science, SPSS is today a common tool for education, marketing, and healthcare researchers to perform statistical analysis and statistical operations. Among the types of data analyzed using SPSS by researchers include scientific research results, Google analytics, server log files, survey results, and organization customer databases. SPSS software, which has been owned by IBM for over a decade, supports spreadsheets, plain text files, and relational databases like SAS, SATA, and SQL. In fact, almost all kinds of formats of structured data are supported by SPSS software.

Why is it valuable to learn SPSS?

It's valuable to learn SPSS as it may give you graphical insights into how to manage data, conduct data mining, select data cases, recode variables, and manage research surveys. Learning SPSS can also help provide quick data analysis with accurate information about variables and cases. The SPSS software also includes charts and graphs, which makes it easy to share and show data findings. These are valuable assets to learn and to use in your professional career. SPSS software can simplify and speed up your data analytics work through its menu-driven UI that gives you data insights with a few clicks.

What are typical career opportunities that can arise from learning SPSS?

Typical career opportunities that use SPSS are mainly jobs like data analysts, research analysts, and intelligence analysts. These roles may be in government work, research, healthcare, science, education, and marketing. You may even use SPSS understanding to work as an SPSS software instructor. In many of these roles, your knowledge of SPSS would help you conduct data management, data analysis, and research functions for your organization, to help provide meaningful insight for the enterprise.

How can taking online courses on Coursera help me learn SPSS?

When you take online courses on Coursera about SPSS, you may learn the basics of using the SPSS software and the fundamentals of statistical theory and design, as well as how to create variables, how to enter data, and how to modify properties of variables in common statistical tests. Having a basic understanding of data and statistics may help you enrich your learning of SPSS in a faster way. It may also speed up your learning of how SPSS is used in quantitative research models and other statistics formulations.

Best SPSS Courses & Certificates [2025]

Explore the SPSS Course Catalog

Status: Free Trial
University of Amsterdam
Methods and Statistics in Social Sciences
Skills you'll gain: Qualitative Research, Scientific Methods, Statistical Inference, Science and Research, Statistical Hypothesis Testing, Research Design, Data Collection, Predictive Modeling, Sampling (Statistics), Statistics, Statistical Analysis, Research Methodologies, Research, Interviewing Skills, Report Writing, Research Reports, Regression Analysis, Data Analysis, Quantitative Research, R Programming
4.6
Rating, 4.6 out of 5 stars
7.7K reviews
Beginner · Specialization · 3 - 6 Months
Status: Preview
Peking University
医学统计学与SPSS软件（基础篇）
Skills you'll gain: Statistical Hypothesis Testing, SPSS, Descriptive Statistics, Statistical Methods, Correlation Analysis, Regression Analysis, Statistical Analysis, Sampling (Statistics), Statistical Inference, Probability & Statistics, Data Manipulation
4.6
Rating, 4.6 out of 5 stars
156 reviews
Mixed · Course · 1 - 3 Months
Status: Free Trial
University of Michigan
Survey Data Collection and Analytics
Skills you'll gain: Sampling (Statistics), Sample Size Determination, Surveys, Survey Creation, Data Analysis Software, Data Collection, Research Methodologies, Statistical Analysis, Research, Stata, Research Design, Interviewing Skills, Statistical Methods, Statistical Modeling, Descriptive Statistics, Data Quality, Data Ethics, Data Analysis, Data Cleansing, R Programming
4.4
Rating, 4.4 out of 5 stars
1.4K reviews
Beginner · Specialization · 3 - 6 Months
Status: Preview
Eindhoven University of Technology
Improving your statistical inferences
Skills you'll gain: Statistical Inference, Bayesian Statistics, Statistical Methods, Statistical Hypothesis Testing, Statistics, Probability & Statistics, Quantitative Research, Scientific Methods, Statistical Modeling, Statistical Analysis, Sample Size Determination, Data Literacy, Research, Statistical Reporting, Probability Distribution, Data Sharing
4.9
Rating, 4.9 out of 5 stars
797 reviews
Intermediate · Course · 1 - 3 Months
Status: Free Trial
PwC
Data Visualization with Advanced Excel
Skills you'll gain: Dashboard, Data Visualization, Interactive Data Visualization, Data Storytelling, Data Presentation, Data Visualization Software, Data Modeling, Pivot Tables And Charts, Microsoft Excel, Spreadsheet Software, Data Analysis, Databases
4.8
Rating, 4.8 out of 5 stars
3K reviews
Beginner · Course · 1 - 4 Weeks
Status: Preview
SAS
Statistics with SAS
Skills you'll gain: SAS (Software), Statistical Hypothesis Testing, Statistical Software, Statistical Analysis, Predictive Modeling, Statistical Programming, Statistical Modeling, Statistical Methods, Regression Analysis, Probability & Statistics, Data Analysis
4.7
Rating, 4.7 out of 5 stars
297 reviews
Intermediate · Course · 1 - 3 Months

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Status: Preview
University of Amsterdam
Data Analytics for Lean Six Sigma
Skills you'll gain: Lean Six Sigma, Process Improvement, Statistical Analysis, Statistical Hypothesis Testing, Minitab, Regression Analysis, Data Visualization Software, Probability & Statistics, Data Analysis, Descriptive Statistics, Histogram, Scatter Plots, Statistics, Box Plots, Correlation Analysis, Variance Analysis
4.8
Rating, 4.8 out of 5 stars
3.4K reviews
Beginner · Course · 1 - 3 Months
Status: Free Trial
Microsoft
Microsoft Data Visualization
Skills you'll gain: Data Visualization, Data Presentation, Data Analysis Expressions (DAX), Dashboard, Data Storytelling, Interactive Data Visualization, Data Cleansing, Data Ethics, Data Modeling, Power BI, Data Visualization Software, Data Governance, Data Transformation, Data Architecture, Data-Driven Decision-Making, Data Quality, Database Design, Data Management, Business Intelligence, Data Analysis
4.7
Rating, 4.7 out of 5 stars
97 reviews
Beginner · Professional Certificate · 3 - 6 Months
Status: Free Trial
University of Colorado Boulder
Statistical Learning for Data Science
Skills you'll gain: Statistical Modeling, R Programming, Statistical Machine Learning, Data Science, Classification And Regression Tree (CART), Decision Tree Learning, Regression Analysis, Statistical Methods, Predictive Modeling, Applied Machine Learning, Supervised Learning, Probability & Statistics, Dimensionality Reduction, Advanced Analytics, Machine Learning Algorithms, Statistical Analysis, Artificial Neural Networks, Unsupervised Learning, Machine Learning, Sampling (Statistics)
Build toward a degree
4
Rating, 4 out of 5 stars
19 reviews
Intermediate · Specialization · 3 - 6 Months
Status: Preview
Coursera Instructor Network
Advanced Quantitative Statistics with Excel
Skills you'll gain: Microsoft Excel, Data-Driven Decision-Making, Statistical Hypothesis Testing, Excel Formulas, Regression Analysis, Business Analysis, Data Analysis, Statistical Methods, Statistical Analysis, Pivot Tables And Charts, Statistical Inference, Probability & Statistics, Forecasting, Data Visualization, Data Manipulation
4.7
Rating, 4.7 out of 5 stars
9 reviews
Beginner · Course · 1 - 4 Weeks
Status: Free Trial
University of Amsterdam
Quantitative Methods
Skills you'll gain: Scientific Methods, Science and Research, Research Design, Sampling (Statistics), Research, Research Methodologies, Data Collection, Quantitative Research, Surveys, Social Sciences, Qualitative Research, Peer Review, Experimentation, Ethical Standards And Conduct
4.7
Rating, 4.7 out of 5 stars
2.3K reviews
Mixed · Course · 1 - 3 Months
Status: Free Trial
University of Colorado Boulder
Data Science Foundations: Statistical Inference
Skills you'll gain: Probability, Probability & Statistics, Statistical Hypothesis Testing, Probability Distribution, Statistical Inference, Statistics, Statistical Methods, Bayesian Statistics, Sampling (Statistics), Correlation Analysis, Data Science, Statistical Analysis, Descriptive Statistics
Build toward a degree
4.4
Rating, 4.4 out of 5 stars
323 reviews
Intermediate · Specialization · 3 - 6 Months