Managing primary data

Audio transcript

"And that will generally be some database system or a spreadsheet.

Microsoft Excel is a great thing for students to get familiar with, and we probably don't teach enough of it, cause it's got the basic spreadsheet functions for most people to use. Once you get into using statistical programs for quantitative analysis, you'll probably use something like SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences), SAS which I forget what it stands for, but it's essentially an equivalent to SPSS, BMDP, Statistica - there are a number of packages around. The university currently supports SPSS - it seems to be the most popular one.

Every institution has a different advanced statistical package that they use. For the most part, undergraduate students can probably get by with Microsoft Excel - it's quite a powerful program. We do teach our undergrads SPSS on the idea that when they get to be more advanced in their 3rd year or 4th year or postgrad, they'll have some experience with it. "

Senior Lecturer in Health & Human Performance