Understanding Society has launched a free training programme to help third sector organisations use household and longitudinal data.
Aimed at new data users and those with experience of simpler aspects of the data, the two-day course covers:
Day 1: lectures and group work
- an introduction to different types of data, including privacy and governance issues
- Understanding Society – survey design, content, file structures and how to access the data
- case study examples of research use
- discussion about the feasible uses of Understanding Society data
Day 2: data management
- how to combine individual and household level information, e.g. for family research
- merging multiple waves of data
- using weights to produce population-level estimates
- data exercises using your preferred software: SPSS, R, Stata, or SAS
Raj Patel, Associate Director, Policy and Partnerships at Understanding Society, says: “Our data is ideal for charities and not-for-profit organisations who want to harness the value of large consistent datasets to improve lives. We face enormous challenges as a society, not only in recovering from the pandemic but in tackling deep-seated social problems, such as communities which have been ‘left behind’.
“Responding to this requires a comprehensive understanding of how people’s lives are changing, and this course will help people in the third sector to find the right data to understand people’s needs, support vulnerable individuals and families, influence policy, and inform campaigns for social change. Charity funders and third sector commissioners can also benefit from harnessing large-scale population data to inform their policies and programmes.”
Longitudinal panel data collect information from the same people over time, making them a powerful resource for research, and for understanding people’s circumstances, behaviours, and outcomes. Understanding Society interviews all adults (aged 16+), and children (10 to 15) within a household, making it ideal for analysis related to families and the consequences of life events, such as poverty or family break-down, on children. In April 2020, Understanding Society introduced an additional Covid-19 survey to capture information on how the pandemic was affecting adults and children on the panel.
The course runs for two full days on 21 and 22 April on Zoom from 9.00am to 4.30/5.00pm.
Family and householdsPolitics and social attitudesSocial mobility
