Abstract

Foundational quantitative data skills are an essential element of statistical literacy for social scientists, but they are often overlooked in favour of more advanced methods. This session will explore a national programme of quantitative data skills training from the UK (UK Data Service) with a focus on data from national statistical agencies such as Census data and social survey data. These data are valuable research resources that could be used more widely for social research and policymaking if quantitative data literacy skills were more widespread among social scientists. The presentation will highlight both the synchronous online training events and asynchronous on-demand training materials, including metrics, user feedback and successes. It will include recent developments including a pilot asynchronous data skills training programme for doctoral students, and the development of a Data Skills Framework for quantitative data skills training. https://zenodo.org/records/11110082.

The Data Skills Framework has been developed in the context of a data landscape undergoing unprecedented change at rapid pace. This initiative aims to establish a robust framework for developing essential data analysis skills for the social, economic and population sciences, focusing on large-scale survey, census, and macro-level aggregate data. The framework acknowledges a rapidly advancing data skills landscape. It emphasises continued development of traditional data skills for contemporary research needs, while recognising growing potential for integrating survey or census data with an expanding array of other sources increasingly accessible to social scientists, as well as promising opportunities presented by AI and machine learning for enhancing analysis.