Learning objectives week 2:

• understand the strengths and importance of quantitative social research
  
• understand the concepts of inductive and deductive reasoning and how these relate to social research
  
• understand the logic behind sampling and statistical inference
• understand the ideas of theory testing and falsification
• recognize the importance of causality for social research
• understand how data sets are constructed
  
• take first steps in Stata (introduction to the software, log files, do files, etc.)
• learn how to code quantitative data

Lecture (The Importance of Quantitative Research):

• Homework week 2:
  • Read at least one of the following texts. You should use this week to explore which of these core texts suits you best, as all of these pursue the same goal, but communicate the content in different ways.
• Required reading week 2:
  • Agresti, A. and B. Finlay (2008) Statistical Methods for the Social Sciences, 4th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Chapter 1
    
  • Coolidge, Frederick L. 2012. Statistics: A Gentle Introduction. Sage. pp. 1-16
    
  • Diamond, Ian and Jefferies, Julie. 2000. Beginning Statistics: An Introduction for Social Scientists. Sage. Chapters 1 and 2
    
  • Lomax, Richard G. and Debbie L. Hahs-Vaughn. 2012. An Introduction to Statistical Concepts, 3rd edition. Routledge. Sub-chapters 1.1.-1.4.
    

Seminar (Introduction to Stata / Preparation of Field Work):

• Homework week 2:
  • Read both of the below texts.
  • Required reading week 2:
    
    • Acock, Alan C. 2014. A Gentle Introduction to Stata, Fourth Edition, Stata Press. Chapters 1 and 2
      
    • Brians, Craig L., Lars Wilnat, Jarol B. Manheim and Richard C. Rich. 2010. Empirical Political Analysis. Pearson. Chapter 14
      
    If you are using a different edition of this book, watch the chapter number. In the 2012 edition, availabe as an e-book from the library, it is chapter 8.