An inseparable part of a researcher’s life is data analysis. We as researchers often feel as if we eat, sleep and live data. Have you ever faced a gap between the way you organised data and the way it was expected by the software? I am sure you did!! And that is nothing less than frustrating. As a matter of fact, the means to organise data as per the requirement of the software are often not incorporated in the data analysis sessions which the researchers often frequent.
We have a solution in the software called “R”. Are you aware? As i asked! It is one of the software that has the most contemporary of techniques which help in data reshaping. Specifically the cast and melt function is very useful. The name itself is indicative and talks of reshaping. The net is a great resource to get handy tutorials that simplify the usage of this software.
The cast and melt function offers opportunities m for data manipulation. We struggle with that as researchers in every document we create. The naïve researchers may struggle at the nascent stage with the usage of this tool without the help of tutorials. This is primarily because the too has been created to deal with a whole lot of complexities. Some of the commands to have a restrictive functionality
One may become more acquainted with this concept with regular practice. It is difficult to learn this in a classroom environment as it is also equally important to try your hand at the data manipulative process. If research is your core area, I say, you must try your hand at it. You would surely gain from it!
You could use the following link to begin with. It would acquaint you with the software.