Abstract:

The article is dedicated to distance learning of sociology students in statistical data analysis using the free software package named PSPP.

In terms of distance learning, students have to study on their personal computers and mobile devices at home, so they usually do not have a license for SPSS - a powerful, popular, but yet proprietary software package for statistical data analysis. The trial version of SPSS lets students to use it for free for two weeks and is not suitable for a half-year educational course. Therefore, the important task that determines the relevance of this article is to organize a distance learning process using the free software package PSPP, which is functionally close to SPSS.

The purpose of this study is to create a model of a typical educational module for students to master the methods of applied statistics for solving practical problems in sociology.

The authors used the following research methods: analysis of the scientific literature exploring the use of statistical software in the sociological research, modeling, conducting experiments and statistical analysis.

The model described in the article assumes that by exploring the functionality of PSPP and completing a set of practical tasks according to a predetermined algorithm in terms of independent remote work, students gain new important competencies related to the ability to analyze data.

Practical exercises cover the following topics:
1) Installation of the package and its documentation.
2) Formats of the source files and package interface.
3) Descriptive statistics (frequency tables, descriptive statistics, exploratory analysis).
4) Comparison of the average indexes (average values, standard deviations, contingency tables, T-test for multiple samples, single-factor analysis of variation).
5) Correlation analysis and correlation pleiades (pair correlations, partial correlations, correlograms).
6) Syntax editor (editor commands, preparation and debugging of program fragments).

The developed model of distance learning, in addition to exploring the functional capabilities of PSPP and completing a set of practical tasks, involves the evaluation of students' academic achievements by testing.

The practical result of the study is a development of a module that teaches statistical data analysis to students using PSPP. It was tested in various groups of sociology students studying applied statistics methods for solving practical problems of sociology in terms of both full-time in-class learning and distance learning.

A bank of test questions dedicated to the subject of the educational module mentioned higher was developed and registered in the Federal Service for Intellectual Property of the Russian Federation.

Keywords:

Student, educational module, practicum, sociology, data analysis, applied statistics, free software, PSPP.