The industry-standard software tool for statistical analysis we will be using in this course is SPSS. We have a floating 40-user licence for use on TWU-owned computers (including the Wong Centre, CanIL lab, campus lab in Neufeld, as well as TWU-owned laptops).
If you wish to run SPSS on your own computer, you have to purchase your own licence from SPSS. You'll want the full version of SPSS Statistics Base, not the SPSS Student Version (which is very limited and is meant more for teaching students about statistics than about enabling them to do real research). The Student Version restricts you to 50 variables and a sample size of 1500, and does not do the SPSS command syntax or add-on modules. It will also look a bit different from the SPSS Base that we use in-class.
An option you can consider is the SPSS Graduate Pack, which includes SPSS Base and is available to students on a 4-year license (you can continue using it for four years, even after you graduate). The GradPack includes the full SPSS Base as well as two add-on packages, SPSS Regression and SPSS Advanced Models, and also a program for structural equation modelling, Amos. GradPack usually goes for about $200 for a 4-year license; considering that SPSS Base alone usually costs $700, this is a good deal.
The SPSS website has a list of online retailers from which you may purchase and download the software. I browsed the list, and the following retailers all offer the GradPack for about $200:
In addition, e-Academy offers short-term rental licenses at a reduced price: 6months for $80 or 12months for $140.