Comparison of intellectus statistics and statistical package for the social sciences: Differences in user performance based on presentation of statistical data

Abstract

Data-to-text systems create reports using natural language to simplify the presentation of complex data. Intellectus Statistics (IS) is a cloud-based statistical analysis software that provides users with output displayed in American Psychological Association (APA) narrative format. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) is another statistical analysis software; however, SPSS output is mainly presented numerically with tables and graphs. The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness and efficiency of using IS and SPSS to conduct and interpret analyses. An output presented in narrative format could be beneficial to students learning statistics who may have difficulty interpreting results. Overall, accuracy scores and time on task for the two software were not significantly different. Perceived usability and ease of use ratings for IS were significantly higher compared to SPSS. On the other hand, ratings of perceived usefulness were not significantly different between the two software. Results also suggested that participants preferred IS and felt more confident in conducting statistical analyses when using the software. Though there was no significant difference in task accuracy between the two software, data-to-text output helped students with interpreting assumptions for analyses and formatting written results.