Professors Vanessa Higgins (left) and Jackie Carter (right) have analysed the role that the UK Data Service online training events play in developing data skills. They find that as well as providing essential data skills, the training also builds confidence and capability, while providing opportunities for career growth.
Our recent study, published in the Journal of Statistics and Data Science Education, explores through qualitative analysis, how the UK Data Service online training events help to address data skills gaps. This is important and timely in the context of an international demand for data skills that is not, as we show, being fully met by current supply pipelines. More creative thinking is needed to address the identified data skills shortage.
We conducted individual qualitative interviews, and reflective thematic analysis, with SHAPE (Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts for People and the Economy) students to explore the skills that they report developing through attendance at UK Data Service online training events. We used Carter’s Analytical and Research Skills Framework as the theoretical basis for the analysis.
The results show that the training events provided the students with the following skills:
- Planning and designing research and assessing data sources
Students learned how to scope and design research projects by exploring what data is available, how to access it, and how it’s collected. Many said it was their first real insight into the range and relevance of publicly available datasets.
- Further learning, career, research community
Attendance at the training events sparked an interest in further learning. Students mentioned their future careers and recognised the importance of quantitative data skills for employability. Students discussed the benefits of knowing who to approach for further help with particular data skills, cascading what they had learnt to others in their organisations and ideas for collaborations.
- Applied practical data skills
From data ethics and management to prepping and cleaning datasets, students picked up practical applied skills that were an invaluable addition to reading about research in journal articles/books or learning about the theoretical aspects of research within their academic courses.
- Gaining confidence to get started with quantitative data
Perhaps most powerfully, the events helped students overcome their fear of numbers. Whether it was anxiety about stats or not knowing where to begin, the training offered a low-pressure “first step” into the world of quantitative data.
These results show that we are not just providing data skills, we are providing building blocks for confidence, capability, and career growth.
We position the UK Data Service online training events at a foundational level with no stats jargon overload and no complicated coding upfront. We provide practical, friendly sessions using real-world data. Students benefit from the training events being free-of-charge, with event recordings freely available on YouTube for asynchronous learning.
Conclusion
Bridging the data skills gap in SHAPE disciplines is crucial for fostering a well-rounded, data-literate graduate population. Our study underscores the effectiveness of tailored online training in achieving this goal. As the demand for data proficiency continues to grow across all fields, such initiatives represent a vital step toward inclusive and comprehensive education.
If we want a data-literate society (and we really, really do), we can’t just focus on STEM.
SHAPE students are future policy-makers, journalists, educators, and more. They need to feel at home with data, too. Further research is needed to develop a coherent data skills framework to be inclusive of SHAPE students, building on Carter’s Analytical and Research skills framework and the recently published UKDS Data Skills Framework for working with large scale survey data, census, and macro-level aggregate data.
Want to read the full study? You can find it here.
About the Authors
Vanessa has spent over twenty years working in data services, data literacy and particularly in training researchers and others how to use government survey data.
She leads the UK Data Service national programme of data skills training for social science researchers, publishes journal articles on data literacy and has led international training initiatives in Latin America and across-Europe.
Jackie Carter is Professor of Statistical Literacy at the University of Manchester. She is author of the book “Work placements, internships and applied social research” (Sage, 2021) and presents and publishes internationally about the benefits of experiential learning for social science, arts and humanities students.
She has both a National and Principal Teaching Fellowship awarded by Advance HE, and industry awards for her work with Women in Data and Women in STEM and Technology. Jackie trained as a mathematician and computer scientist, was formerly a high school teacher and has worked in Higher Education for almost three decades. She describes herself as a late bloomer and an atypical scholar. Jackie is also the academic lead for Disability inclusion at the University of Manchester, describing herself as deaf, dizzy and disabled.
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