Forum Discussion
Macros in Excel dropdown box
Thank you for your response.
I was asked to create this spreadsheet for trainers that have very limited Excel knowledge. So have tried to make it easier for them to navigate through the spreadsheets. It will be compiled by the trainer at the time of the assessment. The candidate will be assessed twice, at the beginning of the course and then again at the end to see if they have improved. With the wordy drop down lists, this is needed by the department as it is what is required by the Language, Literacy and numeracy rules within Australia, so I have to use the actual wording.
You wrote: With the wordy drop down lists, this is needed by the department as it is what is required by the Language, Literacy and numeracy rules within Australia, so I have to use the actual wording.
What I'm questioning is not the wording, per se, but the use of that extensive wording in every drop down box. Those are actually very well worded behavioral descriptions, and I can see why they're useful. I would make sure that the assessors are referring to them in coming up with their evaluations.
They remind me of the tennis player rating system, which has a scale from 1 to 7, although most amateurs are in the range of 1 to 5. These are similarly extensive verbal descriptions of what the skills consist of at each level. Here's an example: http://www.bemidji.usta.com/Services_/_Info/NTRPPLAYERRATINGSCALE/
But in practice, although it's useful, very useful, to check the written description, to make which is applicable to any given player, one inevitably uses short-hand and simply says "She's a 3.5 player" or "He's a strong 4.0." Such short-hand can always be challenged by going back to the description, watching the player play, and pointing out variances from the standard. Verbal descriptions are good things.
I would suggest that you take those good verbal descriptions and place them at the top of each screen, pulling them from a table of ALL of the descriptions--the verbal, the mathematical, etc.--associating each skill level with a number from 5 to 1--but have the drop-downs just display the numbers. The descriptions are good descriptions, they need to be in the process, but do they really need to be in the drop-downs?
To be more clear, I'm suggesting that while you're on the verbal skill level, you display at the top of the screen those 4 or 5 descriptors of verbal skill levels. When the cursor moves to mathematical skill, the list at the top of the screen changes, etc. OR, even easier,, provide them with a printed card that has all the descriptors. The reality is that in using this, the assessors are only going to be thinking of a range from 5 to 1 or top to bottom anyway; they're not going to be reading all the words.
Any final output or summary report on Candidate XY would, of course, use a verbal summary to describe his or her actual skill levels. They just don't really need to be intruding into every assessment cell on the spreadsheet, where, in practice, they almost interfere with seeing and navigating the sheet.
Does that make sense? Keep the words, but use them in a different manner; in the process make the spreadsheet a bit simpler and easier to navigate.