Perception and Utilization of Data Carpentry Tools among Research Scholars at University of Kerala

Abstract

Data Carpentry (DC) has been developed to instruct participants on essential concepts, skills, and tools for more effective and reproducible data management. DC emphasizes data literacy, aiming to equip researchers with the skills necessary to retrieve, view, manipulate, analyze, and store their own and other's data in an open and reproducible manner to derive insights from data. The objective of this study was to assess the perceptions and attitudes towards DC among research scholars of University of Kerala and to find out the purpose for which DC tools is used by the research scholars in the University of Kerala. This study requires a sample of 167 and 179 research scholars completed a questionnaire from a total population of 294 using the Krejcie and Morgan formula, with a 95% confidence interval and a 5% margin of error. SPSS version 22 was used to perform descriptive and inferential statistics on the data. 65.9% of research researchers have experience with DC tools. 48.6% of research researchers at the University of Kerala use DC tools primarily for data analysis. 40.2% of research academics identified insufficient access to training as the most significant obstacle they experience while utilizing DC tools in the study. DC emphasizes data literacy, aiming to equip researchers with the skills necessary to access, view, modify, analyze, and manage their own and others' data in an open and repeatable manner to derive insights from data.