Most people use computer stats packages if they want to perform statistical or data analysis. One of the most popular packages, particularly in psychology and physiotherapy, is SPSS, now known as IBM SPSS. Although there is room for growth in some areas such as ‘robust regression’ (regression for handling data that may not follow the usual assumptions), IBM SPSS has many jazzy features / options such as decision trees and neural nets and Monte Carlo simulation, as well as all the old faves like ANOVA, t-tests and chi-square.
I love SPSS and have been using it since 1981, back when SPSS analyses had to be submitted to run after 11 pm (23:00) so as not to hog the ‘mainframe’ computer resources. Alas, as with Minitab, SAS and Stata and others, SPSS can be expensive if you’re not a student or academic. An open source alternative that is free as in sarsparilla and free as in speech, is GNU PSPP, which has nothing whatsoever to do with IBM or the former SPSS Inc.
PSPP has a syntax or command line / program interface for old school users such as myself, *and* a snazzy GUI or Graphic User Interface. Currently, it doesn’t have all the features that 1981 SPSS had (e.g. ‘two-way ANOVA’), let alone the more recent features, although it does have logistic regression for binary outcomes such as depressed / non depressed. PSPP is easy to use (easier than open source R and perhaps even R Commander, although nowhere near as powerful).
PSPP can handle most basic analyses, and is great for starters and those using a computer at a worksite etc where SPSS is not installed, but need to run basic analyses or test syntax. The PSPP team is to be congratulated!
http://www.gnu.org/software/pspp/ free, open-source PSPP
http://www-01.ibm.com/software/analytics/spss/ IBM SPSS
(students and academics can obtain less expensive versions of IBM SPSS from http://onthehub.com)
Synergistic Statistical Consulting, Analysis, Arboronics 