On Tuesday, March 1st, 2nd-year student Alex Johnson and Dr. Shawn Bergman held a workshop entitled "Data Management in SPSS and Excel." Located in the College of Education at App State, the workshop was open to the entire university, with many staff members and graduate students from various departments in attendance.
Using their considerable expertise, Alex and Dr. Bergman were able to help staff members improve their data management skills. To accomplish this, they began by sharing invaluable software tips with the audience, and walking them through an introductory lesson on the advantages of using SPSS syntax. Additionally, Alex and Dr. Bergman explained the most effective methods of importing and labeling data, and merging multiple datasets.
When asked about what he believed to be the most important topic covered by the workshop, Alex responded, "definitely using Excel to transform string data (for example, changing "agree", "neutral", and "disagree" to 1, 2, and 3). That's a topic where there's not a lot of obvious information out there for people to use. In fact, after the workshop I began working with one of the students who was immensely relieved to find help for that exact problem."
Thanks to the efforts of Alex and Dr. Bergman, the staff and students who attended will undoubtedly be more efficient at managing and analyzing data in a number of different academic fields, which in turn will help App State maintain its reputation as a top-tier university.
Alex Johnson giving a power point presentation
