As part of the ESRC-Nuffield Q-step initiative (http://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/q-step) to improve quantitative methods teaching in undergraduate social science degrees in the UK, a new one-semester quantitative criminology course is being taught to undergraduates at Manchester using R, mainly because of its graphic capabilities.
See http://jjmedinaariza.github.io/R-for-Criminologists/ for full course notes.
In the accompanying pedagogical rationale Professor Juanjo Medina explains why (although he admits that R has problems with crosstabs at which SPSS is excellent.)
It is simple. I was sick to the bone of teaching with SPSS. Why should I bother to be a publicist for IBM? . . .But I never quite fell in love with SPSS, its ugly graphic system, its patched up inconsistent menu design, etc. Its whole architecture, easy in the eye for casual users, seem designed to encourage bad habits among future analysts. In the meantime I continue using a variety of tools for my own research (STATA, MPlus, etc) until I met R and fell in love with it.
See https://rawgit.com/jjmedinaariza/LAWS70821/master/rcommander.html#motivation
As someone who had to teach and assess Data Management and Analysis (at both undergraduate and postgraduate level) within a tight 13-week semester I still feel that SPSS is an easier, and better, route to Quantitative Methods (via contingency tables rather than multivariate statistics) perhaps leading to R at a later stage.
John F Hall MA (Cantab) Dip Ed (Dunelm)
[Retired academic survey researcher]
Email: [hidden email]
Website: Journeys in Survey Research
Course: Survey Analysis Workshop (SPSS)
Research: Subjective Social Indicators (Quality of Life)
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