Excel Basics

Today’s assignment was to work with Microsoft Excel.  We were given a data that represents data which could be collected during research.  I have included a snip of the data below. 

The first thing I did was use the Find/Replace function in Excel to convert the data into numerical code.  For example I replaced the word male with 1 and female with 2.  I repeated this system of finding and replacing each word with a numerical code.  I included a key at the bottom of my spreadsheet so I would know the code I used.  The spreadsheet now includes discrete variables and categorical variables. 

The next thing I did with the data is play around by rearranging different categories in ascending or descending order using the Sort function in Excel.  While rearranging the data I was keeping in mind I needed to develop a null hypothesis. 

The last thing I did with the data is use Excel to calculate the average blog posts which is 15.4.  I compared my number of blog posts, 17, to the average value and I am above average on blog posts.  I also calculated the average number of discussion posts from the mock data, 15.9, and compared it to my number of blog posts which is 52.  I again have above average posts. 

This assignment follows NETS T standard #2 because we are creating a digital-age assessment or at least a mock one.