computer packages

Quantitative sociologists now have access to a huge variety of statistical packages for managing and analysing large-scale data-sets. The most widely used of these is probably SPSS (the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences). However, newer and more user-friendly packages (such as Minitab) are becoming increasingly popular, as are more powerful packages which perform specialized tasks such as complex loglinear analyses . Examples of the latter include the interactive program GLIM (Generalized Linear Modelling), which will also fit a variety of regression models, and the large variety of programs for multi-dimensional scaling (MINISSA, INDSCAL, M-D-SCAL, and so forth). Many methods texts now include detailed information about the authors, sources, and capabilities of competing packages.