To enhance the technological skills of Benguet State University (BSU) researchers in statistical software, the Higher Education Regional Research Center (HERRC) spearheaded a seminar-workshop titled “The Statistical Software Kit: A Guide for Quantitative Data Analysis” on March 19-20, 2024.

Held at the College of Teacher Education Dominador S. Garin Hall, the event was participated by 45 faculty members from BSU La Trinidad, Bokod, and Buguias. It further aims to address challenges encountered by researchers such as lack of awareness of the statistical software and its operations and difficulty in selecting appropriate statistical tools to be used and how data interpretation is done. 

In his opening remarks, Vice President for Research and Extension, Roscinto Ian C. Lumbres emphasized the significant role of the seminar-workshop in guiding the researchers in statistical analysis in their research activities. He hoped the faculty members and researchers would be encouraged to develop research proposals to boost research outputs and secure funding. He added that technologies such as statistical software would facilitate easier and more convenient data analysis in their research endeavors.

HERRC director, Janet Lynn M. Balagtey also expressed optimism that the activity would help alleviate the bottleneck in research undertaking, which is the data analysis. “Sometimes, we observe that researchers have already gathered data but why do they usually stop midway? Because they have difficulty in data analysis on how to interpret and analyze data,” she said.

Resource speakers during the seminar-workshop were the HERRC director and the faculty members from the College of Numeracy and Applied Sciences (CNAS).

Topics discussed were Data Coding by HERRC director, Janet Lynn M. Balagtey; Concepts of Descriptive Statistics, Inferential Statistics, Non-parametric, and Parametric Tests and Lecture and Workshop on SPSS by Freda Kate D. Samuel; Lecture and Workshop on CRAN R by Marycel T. Sajise; Lecture and Workshop on MS Excel and Data presentation and Interpretation by Nick W. Sibaen; and Lecture and Workshop on JAMOVI by Han B. Bonoy.

The speakers gave lectures on the said topics, introduced statistical software and its features, and provided demonstrations of the various statistical software such as SPSS, which stands for Statistical Package for the Social Sciences and is also known as IBM SPSS Statistics; CRAN R, which means Comprehensive R Archive Network; JAMOVI, a new “3rd generation” statistical spreadsheet and is free and open; and Microsoft Excel.

Throughout the seminar-workshop, the participants were guided by the resource speakers on how to install and navigate the four software. They also learned how to select the appropriate statistical tool to be used in analyzing their research data.

During the closing program, Balagtey expressed gratitude to the resource speakers and the participants for attending the event. She also hoped that the workshop provided the participants with an idea and understanding of how statisticians conduct research data analysis.

“At least, through this event we understand what is going on with our research data and make it easier to interpret and discuss because there is a difference if statisticians did the analysis but we do not understand the output…I hope this event gave you insights and provided you possible ways in data analysis,” she said.

Desiree Botengan, one of the participants, acknowledged struggles in keeping up with the demonstration of the software, but she expressed gratitude for insights gained throughout the event. She appreciated the workshop and noted significant progress in navigating the different software.//EBawayan