| Learning objectives |
To achieve the grade 12, students should meet the
following learning objectives with no or only minor mistakes or
errors: On successful completion of the course, the student should
be confident with basic academic working methods for identifying
research problems and selecting theory, methods and data for
analysis. Furthermore, the student should be able to use different
quantitative methods and analytical strategies commonly used within
organisational sociology and business administration. Specifically,
the student should be able to:
- formulate a limited and precise quantitative research
problem,
- operationalise a research problem, including developing models
and hypotheses,
- be familiar with the basics of survey research and be able to
produce their own data by carrying out a simple survey
- plan a basic statistic analysis,
- analyse data and present the relevant findings in tables and
figures,
- account for which impact the level of measurement has on the
analyses,
- discuss strengths and weaknesses in a data set in relation to a
given problem, and
- analyse data using a statistical software package
- be able to report results in accordance with academic
standards
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| Examination |
| The course shares exams with |
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BA-BSOCO1009U
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| Course content and structure |
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This course is the first in our multi-course research methods
sequence for undergraduate students. The aim of the course is to
introduce students to research design, survey data and quantitative
methods with a focus constructing and analyzing survey data.
Students will be introduced to the research process and the process
of analyzing quantitative data through reading and practical
exercises. The first part of the course focuses on the beginning of
the research process – the choice of research design and the
production of survey data, enabling students to construct their own
survey. The second part of the course moves from production of data
to analysis of data. Here, students will (1) get an understanding
of some of the key concepts behind statistical analysis, (2) obtain
knowledge of basic statistical methods, (3) learn/review some
rudimentary math skills that are frequently employed in the social
sciences and (4) develop their ability to apply quantitative
methods to do their own quantitative analysis. While this part will
to a large extent use micro (individual) level data, students will
also be introduced to the use of macro level data (e.g. at the
country level).
The topics that we will cover in this course include selecting
research questions and appropriate designs for analysing particular
question, sampling and survey construction, operationalization of
concepts, probability distributions, basic descriptive statistics,
sampling distributions, point and interval estimation, hypothesis
testing, and regression analysis for continuous and limited
dependent variables. We will also introduce you to STATA, the
computer program we will be using for exercises and assignments.
Finally, the course will also provide students with guidance on how
to report results from quantitative analysis in an accessible and
transparent manner.
The course is planned to support the other courses in the
2nd semester (Introduction to Organisational Sociology
and Philosphy of Science) in order that the students may be
equipped to write the 1st year project using insights
from all three courses. Students are expected to be able to draw
upon the theories and methods they learn in the other courses in
order to formulate research questions etc. in this course. Students
will be encouraged to begin writing early about their work early in
the semester.
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| Teaching methods |
| The course consists of a series of lectures and
exercise sessions. Students are expected to participate actively in
the sessions and to do preparatory work in between sessions in
addition to reading the course material. This will mainly, but not
exclusively, be work related to the 1st year project. Students are
expected to work in groups. |
| Feedback during the teaching period |
| Feedback on work and topics covered in the course
is mainly given during exercises - where there is a higher level of
student-teacher interaction. Feedback will also be given in
relation to questions asked during lectures. Finally, students are
encouraged to use office hours for feedback. |
| Student workload |
| Lectures |
34 hours |
| Exercises |
36 hours |
| Preparation |
342 hours |
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| Expected literature |
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The following material is required readings which you are
expected to obtain:
David de Vaus (2013): Surveys in Social Research,
6th edition. Routledge.
Agresti, Alan and Barbara Finlay. 2008. Statistical
Methods for the Social Sciences. Pearson Education
International
Kellstedt & Whitten (2013). Fundamentals of Political
Science Research, 2nd edition. Cambridge University
Press.You also use this book in Quantitative Methods
I. The books are available @ Academic Books.
The other prescribed readings will be available on
Learn.
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