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Using Microsoft Excel for Social Research
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Using Microsoft Excel for Social Research

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January 2021 | 208 pages | SAGE Publications Ltd

Providing step-by-step instructions for how to use Microsoft Excel for doing statistics, Charlotte Brookfield discusses different stages of the research process, from first planning to writing and presenting your research. With a focus on conducting robust data analysis, the book is reassuring, clear and straightforward, helping you to:  

·       Learn important data skills, such as preparing, cleaning and managing data

·       Reduce anxiety about approaching statistics and quantitative data

·       Boost your employability, showing you how to develop transferable skills, such as effective time management.

Whether you’re learning data skills for the first time or translating your statistics knowledge from other software, this book will help you successfully carry out social research in any setting with confidence, via an engaging pedagogy that includes: colour-coded chapters by difficulty, activities, 'Remember' boxes, further reading and skills checklists.



 
Chapter 1: Introduction
 
Chapter 2: Planning and Undertaking a Research Project in the Social Sciences
 
Chapter 3: Selecting, Evaluating and Cleaning Data Using Microsoft Excel
 
Chapter 4: Getting Familiar with your Data Using Microsoft Excel
 
Chapter 5: Exploring Bivariate Relationships: Crosstabulations and Chi-Square
 
Chapter 6: Exploring Bivariate Relationships: T-Tests and Non-parametric Equivalents
 
Chapter 7: Exploring Bivariate Relationships: Correlation
 
Chapter 8: Exploring Multivariate Relationships: Linear Regression
 
Chapter 9: Bringing it all Together: Writing and Presenting Research

This is an invaluable resource for people learning statistics. Brookfield provides a clear, accessible and engaging introduction to using Excel to explore, analyze and report quantitative data. 

Matthew Durey
University of Sunderland

It makes perfect sense to train our students in Microsoft Excel: not only does the programme have increased functionality for social research, but it is also a staple in many graduate workplaces. This text is distinct from other Excel help guides in that it is explicitly designed around the social research process and with undergraduate students in mind. Using real-life datasets and tools such as ‘reminder boxes’, it is a highly comprehensive, engaging and accessible resource for introductory quantitative research methods modules. 

Rachel Bennett
University of Gloucestershire

This is the book I have been waiting for. We have learned that employers value Excel and that many small workplaces cannot afford SPSS licences. This covers everything we would do in SPSS (possibly excepting recoding variables). Sold.

Dr Eric Harrison
Department of Sociology, City University of London
January 22, 2021

Charlotte Brookfield

Charlotte Brookfield is a senior lecturer of social sciences at Cardiff University. Charlotte is based in the Cardiff Q-Step Centre of Excellence in Quantitative Methods Teaching and Learning. The Centre is one of eighteen across the UK which aim to enhance the quantitative research methods training experience for social science students. The pedagogic activities of the Centre have influenced Charlotte’s research interests and in particular, she is interested in exploring the extent to which British sociology engages with quantitative approaches and the possible factors that may contribute toward sociology students’ resistance to study and... More About Author