In many cases, you may not be able to test a hypothesis which you think is interesting in part because there is no such information. Thorough literature survey can reduce the risk of setting non-testable hypotheses. Strongly encourage students to help each other out in learning how to use the computers and appropriate software. In particular, empirical study with survey data sets undoubtedly entail major time commitments in part because of software learning. Even for those students who have developed computer skills, this is really time consuming.
Computer skills are just tools for efficient research.
Help each other out. Try to replicate previous empirical results in which you are interested, on the condition that the research used a standard, easily available data set. Although the replication itself should not be an original research, this is extremely helpful experience in finding pros and cons of previous results, learning software, data manipulation, and so on. Work closely with the advisor. Avoid using e-mail as much as possible.