Teaching with the UK Data Service: access, analysis …...Survey data were used to teach a variety of statistical concepts and research methods to politics undergraduates. • “When

Teaching with the UK Data Service: access, analysis and visualisation

Hersh Mann

User Support Manager

UK Data Archive / UK Data Service

RSS Annual Conference

Exeter

8 September 2015

• What is the UK Data Service?

• Supporting teaching

• Engaging the student

• Keeping it ‘real’

• Online teaching resources and visualisation tools

• Further help and getting in touch

Overview

Teaching with the UK Data Service 08 September 2015

What is the UK Data Service?

• A comprehensive resource funded by the ESRC

• A single point of access to a wide range of secondary social science data

• Data support for research and teaching

• Training and guidance on a range of research data issues

Types of data collections

• Survey microdata• Cross-sectional

• Panel / Longitudinal

• Aggregate statistics• International macrodata

• Census data• Aggregate data for 1971 -2011

• Microdata for 1991, 2001, 2011

• Qualitative and mixed methods data

How do you engage your students?

• What is the relevance of statistical literacy and an understanding of quantitative methods in a social sciences degree?• “B.A. stands for Bachelor of Arts. Why are they making us do

hard maths and science in an arts degree?”

• How do we overcome this?

• How can we make data interesting?

• How can this be made accessible and less daunting?

Highlight social research in the news

https://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/2015/01/04/the-sibling-spillover-effect-how-older-brothers-and-sisters-boost-your-chance-of-good-grades

https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/2014/05/20/social-media-one-hour-per-day-is-enough-for-our-kids

https://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/2014/04/28/big-sisters-do-better-new-study-of-siblings-find-eldest-girls-have-the-edge

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/mar/28/saturday-jobs-damage-exam-grades-teenagers

The impact of news stories

• Create discussion and debate• Methodology

• How was this measured?

• What conclusions can we draw? What can’t we conclude?

• “That’s not true in my experience so that research is clearly wrong!”

• Illustrate how academic research is studying the real world and how it can inform social policy

• Improve understanding of statistics quoted in the media

What does this mean?

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/17887/89-say-Diana-was-murdered

Teaching datasets

• Our teaching datasets have been prepared for ease of use for new learners

• Many datasets have hundreds or thousands of variables and this can be daunting or confusing to a novice learner

• Teaching datasets are manageable in size and have far fewer variables than the main survey on which they are based, but they are still real datasets that can be used to explore substantive topics

• Do you have an idea for a teaching dataset?

Teaching with data

Teaching datasets

Teaching datasets in Discover

Student resources online

http://ukdataservice.ac.uk/use-data/student-resources

Visualising data

• Using survey microdata often requires specialist software skills in packages like Stata and SPSS

• This can still be daunting even if a teaching dataset has been reduced to a much smaller size

• The UK Data Service supports a series of online tools that do not require specialist software knowledge. These tools can be used to access and visualise• Microdata

• International aggregate data

• UK Census data

Online analysis with Nesstar

• Online data browsing and analysis system

• Allows users to search for, locate, browse and analyse and download a wide variety of statistical data within a web browser

• UK Data Archive, as service provider for the UK Data Service, hosts a Nesstar server populated by its most popular data series

• A number of unrestricted teaching data collections are available

• http://nesstar.esds.ac.uk/webview/index.jsp

Using Nesstar

Using Nesstar

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Using Nesstar

International macrodata

• Access the data source you wish to use in UKDS.Stat

• As with Nesstar this is all done within your web browser and no special software is needed

• Tables can be manipulated and the data can be displayed graphically

• The underlying data can then be downloaded in CSV format

The .stat interface

Visualising international macrodata

Greece: Net Claims On Eurosystem (Units: National Currency, Billions)

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International Monetary Fund (2012): International Financial Statistics (Edition: July 2012). Mimas, University of Manchester. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5257/imf/ifs/2012-07

International macrodata outputs

Proportion of seats held by women in national parliaments (%)World Bank (2013): World Development Indicators (Data downloaded: 30 January 2013). Mimas, University of Manchester. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5257/wb/wdi/2013-01-30

Using international macrodata

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French Snail Imports, 2014

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Exploring census data online

Case Study 1: International macrodata

• Paul Turner, University of Loughborough• ‘Using real-world data to understand econometrics’

• IMF International Financial Statistics were used in a course with 150 undergraduates. The aim is for students to understand both basic and more advanced techniques that will allow economic theories to be tested using econometric applications and tools.

• “I always start the econometrics course off by telling them that if there's one course they may actually make use of when they leave- it's probably going to be this one.”

Case Study 2: Survey microdata

• Rob Johns, University of Essex• ‘Introducing students to politics through real data’

• British Election Study and British Social Attitudes Survey data were used to teach a variety of statistical concepts and research methods to politics undergraduates.

• “When I was a student, I didn’t like the teaching method where you were just shown some output and how to interpret it, or where every week it was a different data set and you did not get a chance to really work with and understand the data.”

Case Study 3: Longitudinal data

• Ruth Salway, University of Bath• ‘Using data in practice and in theory’

• The Longitudinal Study of Young People in England (LSYPE) was used to teach an undergraduate course on applied statistics. The students were grounded in the necessary theory and in statistics practice but were yet to use data beyond their textbook examples.

• “I remember the UK Data Archive as a source of a lot of survey data all together and once I’d narrowed it down I didn’t look anywhere else as I knew I would find what I wanted there.”

Are you using data in the classroom?

• If you have used data obtained from the UK Data Service in your teaching (or if you have been inspired to do so on the basis of this presentation!), please contact us and let us know.

• Do you have an idea for repurposing an existing data collection to create a teaching resource? We can help.

• We would be delighted to feature you in a case study

Other resources

• Support / how to guides found via Discover

• Workshops and user meetings (check our news and events pages)

• Provide advice on research data management planning and preservation

• Are you using our resources? Please tell us. We can help promote and demonstrate the impact of your research

• Contact us / follow us viahttp://ukdataservice.ac.uk/about-us/contact.aspx

https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=UKdataservice

https://twitter.com/UKDataService

https://www.facebook.com/UKDataService

Questions

ukdataservice.ac.uk/help/

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[email protected]

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