How do I generate a random sample in EXCEL?

Let us suppose we wish to randomly sample n cases of data comprising N people.

1. Put =RAND()*N in row 1 of the column adjacent to the right most data column in the spreadsheet

2. Copy and paste into remaining N-1 rows

3. Go to Data>sort on the EXCEL menu and make sure you sort in ascending order by the column you have just created. Click OK.

4. Delete rows n+1 to N.

We have randomly permuted the data rows so that the first, or any adjacent, n rows represent a random sample of size n.

Block randomization and other procedures may also be done on-line here.

More on the rand() function.

There is also easy to use syntax to perform this in SPSS.