flynn002

I enjoy analysing data and I've been doing it for years, but I still do things inefficiently. All the same, I have learned some things along the way. As I work through another complex dataset, I thought it worth sharing some of the most useful tips I've picked up to make life simpler and smoother.  Some are very elementary and they will mostly be of relevance to psychologists who use Excel and SPSS to do fairly straightforward analyses, though some points are more generic. A lot of these tips have to do with deploying those frontal lobes and thinking ahead: you need to be aware of three things: How you set up a dataset can make a big difference to how easy it is to analyse later on You will not remember anything about your data in a few years (or even months) time There are increasing moves towards data-sharing - i.e. making your data available on a public repository and you need to plan for that too. 1. Label your subjects consistently and anonymously You will almost certainly...

As an avid Twitter user, I'm always interested in new developments in social media, and so I was intrigued when Caroline Bowen (@speech_woman) and Bronwyn Hemsley (@bronwynhemsley) invited me to curate a session of @WeSpeechies for a week. I said yes immediately, though I had no real idea (and still have no real idea) of what I was getting myself into. But I knew that Caroline had done an enormous amount to encourage 'Speechies' (i.e., Speech and Language Therapists in the UK/Speech-Language Pathologists elsewhere) to use the internet. In 1998, she started a web-based resource : this is a mine of useful information, including links to assessments, interventions and evidence-based information. I'm not a speechie myself –  I'm a full-time researcher with a Principal Research Fellowship from the Wellcome Trust and my background is neuropsychology -    but I've always worked closely with the profession, because of my interest in children's communication impairm...