Excel Training with MLC Instructor Guide

Excel Training with MLC – Instructor Guide

Handout includes:

 Basic commands

 Error messages

 Excel forums for help

 Screen shots with more complex excel formulas

*Ask who has heard of any of the definitions/formulas. Ask someone to explain/model if they already know.

Quick definitions: (quick review of the toolbar)

 Ribbon is what looks like a toolbar on the top of the screen in Excel.

 Tabs are the different areas you can click on to show different shortcuts (e.g. “Home,” “Insert,” “Page Layout,” “References,” etc)

 Worksheet refers to the tabs on the bottom of the Excel page you are looking at (e.g. “Sheet1,” “Sheet2” etc)

 Workbook is the entire document you are working on (i.e. when you “Save” you are saving an entire workbook)

DEMONSTRATION (We go through these suggestions, and show what it looks like in Excel)

Spreadsheet set up/organization  Keeping original data o Benefits: can always go back to reference if lose data in future manipulations. . Double check mechanism (total entries, etc) o Con: If you don’t have a systematic labeling system, you may end up not using your most recent data. . Recommend using a system like: Date_Name, or Name_v1…3, etc  Cleaning data (look at formatting, blanks, duplicates) o This is the process of looking over the spreadsheet(s) you have and making sure all the data is entered in correctly o Cell format is a good thing to look at. There are two easy means of checking and correcting format. . Highlight the cell/row/column and right click “Format cells…” . Highlight the cell/row/column and select format from the drop down box on the top of the ribbon, in the “Home” tab. Excel Training with MLC – Instructor Guide

. Likely, the majority of things you will want to format to are: . Number . Text . Percentage . Date o Other things to look for when cleaning data are whether or not there are duplicates or blanks . Determining either of these can easily be done with an Excel command (to be covered below), called Conditional Formatting o Recommend making all numbers have the same decimal point length. (Show where this shortcut is on the ribbon)  Setting up spreadsheets (copying) o Setting up spreadsheets . Put each individual respondent as a single row – all information for that person should be on the same line per worksheet . Each question/data point should be a column . Responses to data collection tools should be either (1) in numeric form, or (2) written out exactly the same way for each person (so that it can be analyzed) . If you are entering in data for a single instrument with multiple questions, questions/columns should be in the order of the instrument. E.g. Pre-test data should be grouped together and Post-test data grouped together. This makes entering less likely to be prone to error. . Formulas/auto-calculations should be at the end of the raw data columns (e.g. do not input percentage scores – put in the original score and calculate after). This helps to preserve clean data and allow you the flexibility of manipulation depending on your needs, later. . Formulas at the top of columns . Most of you will be using a template, or working from the same spreadsheet and adding in data over time. . Create formulas at the top of columns so that you can continue to add in cells/data below. . In some cases, when you want to auto-calculate, put this in its own column (see ‘Assessments’ cell x3) . Using IDs with individuals helps protect privacy, and can help with duplications. (Show command, =RAND()) o Thinking about when to keep data on the same worksheet versus separate worksheets Excel Training with MLC – Instructor Guide

. No rules on this . Same worksheet: . Keeping pre and post together . Data from different tools that you want to compare . Different worksheet: . When data is grouped by theme . When you want to analyze questions individually . Keeping a MASTER copy – can be useful to have one worksheet that has all data on an individual in one place; worksheets by theme may be best for further analytical depth on a particular question/data point  Conditional formatting basics o My use of conditional formatting is to highlight duplicate values, or those that are equal to or between certain numbers. . Select cells where you want to check and see if there are any same names; choose “Conditional Formatting”Highlight cell rules “Duplicate Values” o Note: can sort, count etc. on conditional formatting. And, more advanced options. PRACTICE (Will show how to do, then, ask people to practice on their own; 2nd person will walk around to assist) Basic shortcuts  Auto-fill cells (Highlight a cell, hover the mouse on the bottom right corner of the cell, click on it and drag down when you see + as cursor)  Sheet view options o Sorting (using headers; clicking the check box with “custom sort”) . E.g. Want all students who have not yet left a program: “Custom sort””Sort by: Exit date” . Useful when creating a visual/chart – good to have a chronological order when reading summary information o Filtering o Freezing panes o Un/Hiding rows Using Formulas  Start of all formulas must be a “=” or “+” sign  Use parentheses to make sure the order of operations is being conducted correctly  Excel will show you formula options if you start to write the first few letters of the calculation you want to do Excel Training with MLC – Instructor Guide

 Copy/paste of formulas (when you need to use $) o $A – this holds the column numbers constant o $22 – this holds the row numbers constant o $A$22 – means that the formula should always reference that particular cell o E.g. =(B2-$A$22); If A22 was an average of a group of numbers, you could then calculate the difference between individual scores and the average. This could tell you whether or not you had many people meeting the average or going way above while only a few who were really unsuccessful and dragged the average down.  SUM, AVERAGE o =SUM(A:A) . This allows you to add in rows and the calculation will automatically include the new data o =SUM(A2:A40) . This gives you a set amount for a specific group . Could do this if you’ve sorted for a particular group of participants, but is prone to error as you need to update this if you ever add people. Sometimes is also hard to recall what the number is for. We’ll go over some formulas for if you want to just calculate a group of people based on some characteristics. o =AVERAGE(A:A) . Can be useful for analysis if you are trying to give a general sense of how program participants are doing . Can compare averages from a pre and post, or year to year change  How to do a COUNT and COUNTIF command; why this can be helpful. o How to do a COUNTIF; why helpful . COUNTIF enables you to count how many people meet a certain criteria. Think of it as “count, if” something exists . E.g. if you want to know how many people improved their scores from their pre-test, you can calculate the difference between their pre and post. Then, use the formula: =countif(U:U,“>0”) . C:C represents the column of cells from which you want to count (in this example, U:U has the change in WPM pre to post scores) . The comma separates the command . Quotation marks delineate the rule you are creating . “>0” shows that you want to count any cells that have numbers greater than 0 in them. . PRACTICE: Excel Training with MLC – Instructor Guide

. Level 1: Count the number of students who had negative SW scores from data point 1 to data point 2 (Use ‘Assessments’ tab data) . More difficult: Count the number of people from Minneapolis . Harder still: Calculate the percentage of students who had no change in their SW scores.  How to create a drop-down menu o This can be a good tool if you have a lot of text to write/repeat in cells. o Is also helpful if you have multiple people working on entering data and want to make sure that text (or numbers) is put in exactly the same. . Consistency of data entry is CRITICAL for data analysis; this makes data cleaning easier, and insures less error in calculations o For example, in the case of Summer Reads, VISTAs were all writing the name of the school they worked at, differently (hyphenating with/out spaces, abbreviating, etc) o DEMONSTRATION: Show how to create school in ‘Assessments’ worksheet . Create worksheet with the different values you would like in a drop-down list . Highlight cell that you want to have the drop-down . Go to DATA tab . Click Data Validation  under Settings, choose “List” from the “Allow:” drop- down. . Click on the “Source:” box go to the ‘Drop down’ excel sheet  Highlight the cells you would like in the list  hit return or click OK . ****Using the drag-down function, show how you can easily drag this pre- set drop-down to as many cells as you want o PRACTICE: Use ‘Assessments’ worksheet. Create drop-down below the last student (row 28) . Level 1: Create a drop down list in cell F28 of all the schools, using the list from the ‘Drop down’ sheet . Level 2: Create a drop down list in cell G28 of all the site types, using the list from the ‘Drop down’ sheet . Level 5: Create the drop-down list in cell F28 of the schools. Choose one to fill the cell. Now, without using the drop down feature in column G-I, figure out how to auto-populate Site Type, City, and/or Region based on what is chosen from the drop-down (HINT: we learned this in vlookup) Protecting Workbooks, Sheets, Cells (EXTRA/BONUS)

Ctrl+A Format cells Protection Excel Training with MLC – Instructor Guide

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