[nabs-l] SPSS info

Wed Feb 29 23:18:04 UTC 2012

Hi Cindy,
My school uses the current version of Windoweyes. Do you or anyone 
else have any information about the accessibility with Windoweyes?
Thanks for the information you posted about the program.
Peace,
Cari

At 06:06 PM 2/28/2012, Cindy Bennett wrote:
>A while ago, I mentioned that I would receive some training from a
>grad student I know with JAWS and SPSS. She has been very helpful, and
>I wanted to share what I have learned so far.
>
>Right now, she uses SPSS versions 16 and 19. 19 is the current
>version, and most schools and research workplaces keep the current
>version. She had to go through her school to get version 16.
>
>She has version 19 on her work desktop. Before she could even use it
>with JAWS, she had to obtain a fix from Freedom Scientific. This fix
>actually works. I remember trying one that came out for version 17
>when I was in undergrad stats, and it didn't work, but this one does,
>so that is an improvement.  Before she uses SPSS, she has to close all
>programs, restart the computer, and only run JAWS and SPSS. She had to
>add RAM to her computer so that it has 8 gigs which is more than the
>typical computer has. Apparently, the computer cannot handle running
>JAWS and SPSS with under that amount of RAM.
>
>Even after those accommodations to maximize the productivity of the
>program, she says that after several analyses, the computer sometimes
>restarts. That being said, she is working at a professional research
>firm, so homework assignments for stats classes would definitely not
>be working with data sets of 31 thousand.
>
>The version we practiced on was 16 since it works better with JAWS,
>and since it is on her work laptop. She is using JAWS 12 and Window's
>XP. I do not know if there is a version 16 of SPSS that works with
>Window's 7 since it is updated so frequently.
>
>When you open SPSS, there are 2 windows, the data view, and the
>variable view. The variable view is where you label your variables. It
>is best to do this first. Each row represents a variable like age or
>gender, and each column represents something about that variable that
>you can set like how many decimal places to round to, what type of
>variable it is, etc. this is where you can code for variables. For
>example, you can specify 1 for males and 2 for females. This way, you
>could just enter 1 or 2 into the gender column of the data view, and
>the output table which I will describe later would then code the
>findings accordingly.
>
>Pressing control t toggles between the variable and data views. The
>data view can be described as a spreadsheet. Each column represents
>one of the variables you specified in the variable view. The variable
>you specified in the first row of the variable view is the title of
>column 1 in the data view. Each row of the data view represents a
>case, or one subject of the study. Typically, people would enter their
>data into the data view. However, my friend prefers to save the SPSS
>file as an Excel file at this point. The reason for this is that JAWS
>lags when moving among cells, so she can enter data faster in Excel.
>Also, each time you move down a case in the data view, JAWS specifies
>the variable name. This would be somewhat tolerable if it simply said
>the variable such as age or gender, but it says a lot of other
>syntax-like crap as well which contributes to JAWS lagging. My
>communications instructor at BLIND, Inc. said that there could be some
>options in verbosity to eliminate some of what JAWS says, but I
>haven't explored this.
>
>So, once you save as an Excel file, you can open the Excel file and
>enter your data. The columns in Excel would correspond to the columns
>in SPSS, so whatever data corresponds to the variable in row 1 of the
>variable view should be entered in column A in Excel.
>
>At this point, I would close the SPSS file so as not to confuse it
>with the SPSS file you will make later.
>
>Since the purpose of SPSS is the ability to run a variety of data
>analyses, you have to save the Excel file as an SPSS file once you
>have entered your data. You can then open the SPSS file. The analyses
>are found in the menus. Once you run an analysis, an output table will
>appear, but JAWS will not say anything. So, you have to export it (NOT
>SAVE AS) to Excel. After doing this, you can then easily read the
>results of the output table.
>
>My friend also prefers to explore data sets by saving them as Excel
>files because of JAWS lags and because you cannot do searches for data
>within SPSS.
>
>I am also working on Macs at BLIND, Inc., and we downloaded the trial
>version of SPSS onto one of the MacBooks. I was unable to navigate
>anything when entering the program, but now that I have a
>conceptualization of what is supposed to be there, we will try again,
>and I will let you know if I get anywhere with it.
>
>There are a ton of things I can go into about SPSS, but I think that a
>lot of it can be explored or learned in statistics classes. I think
>that the important thing is to gain a conceptual idea of SPSS. I had a
>positive experience since I had run into so many dead ends. Although
>version 16 is somewhat hard to find in school settings which are
>constantly updating technology, IBM is doing beta accessibility
>testing for version 20, and I am supposed to receive more information
>about that in April. So, maybe that will be better. However, at this
>point, I would fight for version 16. I know that it can be tedious and
>that Excel and other free softwares are more accessible and can
>perform some of the analyses, but SPSS is a really good skill to have.
>It is the common software for schools and workplaces, and it seems to
>be more comprehensive than other programs.
>
>If you are interested in learning more about the beta testing, you can
>email lar at us.ibm.com. I have no idea if they are still taking beta
>testers, and it was about a week before I got a response, so don't be
>disconcerted if you don't get a reply immediately. Other than that, I
>know nothing about the promised accessibility of future versions or
>about the beta testing process.
>
>If you would like me to explain anything in more detail, just let me
>know. And, if you have any more knowledge about the program like
>accessible features I might have left out, please share.
>
>--
>Cindy Bennett
>B.A. Psychology, UNC Wilmington
>
>clb5590 at gmail.com
>828.989.5383
>
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