At 07:15 24/03/2016 +0000, Som Noname wrote:
calc is a powerful spreadsheet program and i want to use this for
data analysis.
It may be more powerful than you think!
let's say, one study has a variable named "malnutrition" measuring
the nutritional status of under-five children. this variable has two
value levels - "1=malnutrition" and "2=normal"
If "normal" means *not* malnourished, surely the category should be
"nutrition", not "malnutrition", and the possible value needs to be
"malnourished", not "malnutrition" (as well as "normal")?
present scenario: if data in entered as "1"/"2", spreadsheet will
show it as "1"/"2".
Why do people think all data needs to be represented as numbers? The
numbers 1 and 2 have two properties that are inappropriate here.
First there is a collating order: 1 comes before 2 - but there is no
sense in which "malnourished" comes first in preference to "normal".
Second, numbers have value: 2 is exactly twice the size of 1 - but
there is no sense in which "normal" is exactly (or only) twice as
good as "malnourished". If you see a malnourished child, you don't
remark "Oh, look how 1 he is"! These are what are called
non-parametric statistics, and you should avoid complication and
confusion by ascribing numbers to them. (Don't believe any
mathematicians who tell you everything has to be thought of in terms
of numbers.)
if it is entered as "malnutrition"/"normal", it will be shown in that manner.
You are lucky that - unlike in mathematics - spreadsheets are happy
handling text values such as these. So using values such as
"malnourished" and "normal" - or perhaps just "m" and "n" - will suit
your purpose better than 1 and 2. It would be a very simple matter to
make mistakes by confusing which condition was 1 and which was 2 -
something much less likely with meaningful labels such as "m" and "n".
possibilities: renaming the cell. [...] cell A2 has a code of "1"
and is renamed to "malnutrition" (upper left corner).
No, you misunderstand what names are about. You give a name to a
*cell* (or, generally, a cell range), so the name becomes an
alternative way of identifying the cell (or range) and has nothing to
do with the value or values contained. And you obviously cannot name
more than one cell with the same name!
my question finally comes to this - is there any way to do this in a
spreadsheet program?
There are many techniques to help you here.
o If you wanted to, you could format relevant columns to expand "m"
to "malnourished" and so on - as has already been explained.
o Alternatively, it would be a simple job to create a parallel column
with formulae which would show the full word derived from the single
input letter. You could exclude your input column from any print
range to suppress its output.
o If you use the full words, as soon as you have entered the two
values at least once each somewhere in a column, just typing the
first letter (since they are conveniently different) will
automatically show the full word as a suggestion. You need only press
Enter or down-arrow or click the green arrow to complete the full
word as the entry.
o Again, once both values appear somewhere in a column, you can press
Ctrl+D to show a selection list. The arrow keys and the Enter key
enable you to select the required value quickly.
o Best of all, you should consider using Data | Validity... to
restrict values in the column to those listed in a cell range set up
elsewhere in the spreadsheet. Now any selected cell comes with a
drop-down menu of the permitted values and the arrangement ensures
that only recognised values can be entered. Apart from the
convenience, this prevents the possibility of spelling mistakes in
input - which would otherwise be quite likely in a large set of data.
I trust this helps.
Brian Barker
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