How Online Training Events are Supporting the Development of Quantitative Data Skills in social science students: a qualitative research project

There is international demand for quantitative data skills – with Governments increasingly concerned with how data skills are acquired for 21st Century jobs. There is evidence from data skills training initiatives that social science students can help to fill this gap (Carter, 2021a, 2021b; Tazzyman et al., 2021) but more data skills training is needed to fulfil this need. The purpose of this paper is to explore how online training events can support social science students to develop data skills. We present results from a qualitative research project using in-depth interviews with social science students who have participated in UK Data Service (UKDS) online training events. We use reflective thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke 2021) to explore how the training enhances their data literacy and helps them acquire skills that they can use in their studies and research careers. We also discuss how the results from the project are feeding back into developments in the UKDS data skills training programme.