Module Description

This module has two aims: introduce to academic quantitative literature, secondary data acquisition and management, and the use of applied statistics in the social sciences; prepare to attend further statistical training (including PO92Q: Advanced Quantitative Research) and make use of statistics in future research works, such as master's or PhD dissertations.

This will not be an abstract statistics module, but a comprehensive approach to social and political numbers, in keeping with all method modules students may have attended previously and concurrently. It will include example data from diverse fields of social sciences, in particular surveys on attitudes and opinions. Exercises and essays will be based on a selection of datasets, such as the British Social Attitudes Survey, the European Social Survey, the World Values Survey, and the International Social Survey Programme.

The module consists of nine weeks of teaching, with an hour lecture and a two-hour, small-group seminar each week. It is assessed by one final examination.

Topics Covered

• Basic statistical concepts
• Descriptive statistics
• Probability and inference
• Relationships between two variables
• Test statistics
• Introducing a third variable
• Simple linear regression
• Multiple linear regression