Interpreting and Using Survey Data from Excel

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Good Morning from Cleveland, Ohio.

Glad to help you out amd let's see if we can shed a little light on the issue you have presented with respect to Excel. However, before delving right into the matter a little pre-emtive information is necessary. Don't worry it won't hurt! :-) The information I am about to share with you will help you in future issues dealing with all sorts of questions regarding the broad area of data interpretation. OKAY..hang on because here we go.

Whenever you are confronted with a situation involving numeric data of any kind you must first decide if you want to "describe" what is going on from the numeric data you collected or you want to "infer" from what is going on. When you want to describe what is going on from the numeric data you have collected you can use what are called "descriptive statistics. On the other hand when you want to infer or determine what differences occur in a situation that you are investigating you must use what are called "Inferential Statistics". With me so far? :-) Each of these methods, thanks to our wonderful wolrd of advanced computer programming, uses specially designed computer programs. To infer for the numerical measurement data what is available are programs suck as SPSS, SAS, and a host of other closely related computer programs. Now...if you want only to describe what the numerical data looks like without drawing inferences from the data you have collected you can use the tried but true good ole Excel! Sure wish all these programs were available when I was in graduate school as it would have made my life a lot easier and more time to party ;-) Oh well...I am making up for it now! :-) lol Okay...are you clear now when and what to use when you collect a bunch of numeric data? Good...let's go on.

Follow closely now as what I am about to present about Excel will include both the pros and cons of using this program when dealing with surveys.

What's the best way to analyze survey data with Excel? My advice: don't try! A statistical program is much better: something like SPSS, Statistica, Epi Info, SAS, Minitab, or many others. But, I don't advise you to tell your professor this or he/she might not like ...