SWK 3402.3-3.1 Data Entry Exercise

INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this activity is to recall how data from data collection tools are entered into a data file for analysis purposes. Some forms of data are somewhat automatically entered into data files—online Qualtrics surveys or optical scanning forms, for example. However, investigators often need to transfer the information from data collection tools into a data file.

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Open the pdf file called “coursebook survey five data forms”. This is your information is the raw data to be entered for the first 5 participants in a post-only “intervention” evaluation where students in the first semester of a 2-course research sequence (SWK 3401) were asked about their experiences with the new free, online, interactive coursebook replacing a traditional textbook. The data you are working with for this exercise come from the class identified simply as class number 2.
2. Open Excel.
3. Open a blank workbook in Excel.
4. With your cursor in cell A1, create your first variable: this is the “class number” variable. You will want to name it something that clearly identifies the variable but follows the naming rules—no spaces, no special symbols (e.g., cannot use #), and an underscore (    ) works as a replacement for a space. A variable name like classnum might work.
5. With your cursor in cell B1, create your next variable. This is the first question about engaging and interesting. Continue creating your variables through question 9. For now, you can ignore the qualitative data in the comments and observations box.
6. Next, you will want a record of what the data actually mean—what is a “2” for example in the rating scale? Open a second sheet by clicking on the + symbol down near the bottom row, left of center, next to where it says Sheet1. This should open a blank form that is called Sheet2.
7. Go back to Sheet1 and copy the cells A1 to J1 (the top row, with your variable names). Then switch back to Sheet2 and paste the list across cells A1 to J1.
8. Staying on Sheet2, in cell A2, enter the information about this variable: categorical from 1 to 10 and in cell A3 enter the information that this variable identifies class section. ***REMEMBER: You can use “wrap text” feature on the top menu bar if you don’t want the information to spill over covering the next cell. ***You can also drag the line separating columns to the right to make them wider to avoid spill-over between columns.
9. In cell B2, enter the information about this variable: ordinal rating. Then in cell B3 type in what a rating of 1 means: 1=much worse. Continue to do this for cells B4 to B7 (ratings of 2 to 5) where 2=somewhat worse, 3=about the same, 4=somewhat better, 5=much better.
10. Copy the cells B2 to B7 information to the corresponding cells for the remaining questions 2 to 8 (column C to column I).
11. In cell J2, enter the information about this variable: ordinal rating. Then, in cells J3 to J7 type in what each value means: 1=much too easy, 2=somewhat too easy, 3=about right, 4=somewhat too hard, 5=much too hard.
12. Now you are ready to return to Sheet1 and enter the data provided by these 5 students. You might wish to save your data file! In the real world, we try to save often to avoid lost work.
13. See if your data file (Sheet1 and Sheet 2) resemble the file named “coursebook evaluation data entry exercise finish”. If so, CONGRATULATIONS! You have successfully completed this data entry exercise. NOTE: It is very easy to make data entry errors—we are only human after all. The actual data for this evaluation effort were entered using a scanning program (Remark OMR) instead of hand entering the information. Not only is this a time saver (over 150 students completed one of these forms and this was a very short form as data measures go) it reduces the data entry error rate to almost 0%.