Social Sciences Research Methods Programme course timetable

This module introduces the use of R, a free programming language originally developed for statistical data analysis. In this course, we will use R through R Studio, a user-friendly interface. Students will learn:

• Ways of reading data into R
• How to manipulate data in major data types
• How to draw basic graphs and figures with R
• How to summarise data using descriptive statistics
• How to perform basic inferential statistics

This module is suitable for students who have no prior experience in programming, but participants will be assumed to have a good working knowledge of basic statistical techniques.

For an online example of how R can be used: https://www.ssc.wisc.edu/sscc/pubs/RFR/RFR_Introduction.html'''

The module will introduce students to the study of language use as a distinctive type of social practice. Attention will be focused primarily on the methodological and analytic principles of conversation analysis. (CA). However, it will explore the debates between CA and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), as a means of addressing the relationship between the study of language use and the study of other aspects of social life. It will also consider the roots of conversation analysis in the research initiatives of ethnomethodology, and the analysis of ordinary and institutional talk. It will finally consider the interface between CA and CDA.

Topics:

• Session 1: The Roots of Conversation Analysis
• Session 2: Ordinary Talk
• Session 3: Institutional Talk
• Session 4: Conversation Analysis and Critical Discourse Analysis

This module introduces the use of R, a free programming language originally developed for statistical data analysis. In this course, we will use R through R Studio, a user-friendly interface. Students will learn:

• Ways of reading data into R
• How to manipulate data in major data types
• How to draw basic graphs and figures with R
• How to summarise data using descriptive statistics
• How to perform basic inferential statistics

This module is suitable for students who have no prior experience in programming, but participants will be assumed to have a good working knowledge of basic statistical techniques.

For an online example of how R can be used: https://www.ssc.wisc.edu/sscc/pubs/RFR/RFR_Introduction.html'''

This is an introductory course for students who have little or no prior training in statistics. The module is divided between lectures, in which you'll learn the relevant theory, and hands-on practical sessions, in which you will learn how to analyze real data using the statistical package Stata. You will learn:

• The key features of quantitative analysis, and how it differs from other types of empirical analysis
• Basic concepts: what is a variable? what is the distribution of a variable? and how can we best represent a distribution graphically?
• Features of statistical distributions: measures of central tendency and dispersion
• The normal distribution
• The basics of formal hypothesis testing
• Why statistical testing works
• Statistical methods used to test simple hypotheses
• How to use Stata

This is an introductory course for students whose research involves collecting, storing or analysing data using networked digital devices. Unless your research data is only collected using pen and paper or tape recorders and is written up on a manual typewriter, this course will be relevant to you. If you are planning to collect data online through either public or private communications, or you intend to share or publish data collected by other means it will be essential.

This is an introductory course for students who have little or no prior training in statistics. The module is divided between lectures, in which you'll learn the relevant theory, and hands-on practical sessions, in which you will learn how to analyze real data using the statistical package Stata. You will learn:

• The key features of quantitative analysis, and how it differs from other types of empirical analysis
• Basic concepts: what is a variable? what is the distribution of a variable? and how can we best represent a distribution graphically?
• Features of statistical distributions: measures of central tendency and dispersion
• The normal distribution
• The basics of formal hypothesis testing
• Why statistical testing works
• Statistical methods used to test simple hypotheses
• How to use Stata

The course will provide students with an introduction to the popular and powerful statistics package Stata. Stata is commonly used by analysts in both the social and natural sciences, and is the statistics package used most widely by the SSRMC. You will learn:

• How to open and manage a dataset in Stata
• How to recode variables
• How to select a sample for analysis
• The commands needed to perform simple statistical analyses in Stata
• Where to find additional resources to help you as you progress with Stata

The course is intended for students who already have a working knowledge of statistics - it's designed primarily as a ""second language"" course for students who are already familiar with another package, perhaps R or SPSS. Students who don't already have a working knowledge of applied statistics should look at courses in our Basic Statistics Stream.

The module will introduce students to the study of language use as a distinctive type of social practice. Attention will be focused primarily on the methodological and analytic principles of conversation analysis. (CA). However, it will explore the debates between CA and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), as a means of addressing the relationship between the study of language use and the study of other aspects of social life. It will also consider the roots of conversation analysis in the research initiatives of ethnomethodology, and the analysis of ordinary and institutional talk. It will finally consider the interface between CA and CDA.

Topics:

• Session 1: The Roots of Conversation Analysis
• Session 2: Ordinary Talk
• Session 3: Institutional Talk
• Session 4: Conversation Analysis and Critical Discourse Analysis

This module follows on from Foundations in Applied statistics, and will teach you the basics of common bivariate techniques (that is, techniques that examine the associations between two variables). The module is divided between lectures, in which you'll learn the relevant theory, and hands-on practical sessions, in which you will learn how to apply these techniques to the analysis of real data.

Techniques to be covered include:

• Cross-tabulations
• Scatterplots
• Covariance and correlation
• Nonparametric methods
• Two-sample t-tests
• ANOVA
• Ordinary Least Squares (OLS)

For best results, students should expect to do a few hours of private study and spend a little extra time in the computer labs, in addition to coming to class.

This module follows on from Foundations in Applied statistics, and will teach you the basics of common bivariate techniques (that is, techniques that examine the associations between two variables). The module is divided between lectures, in which you'll learn the relevant theory, and hands-on practical sessions, in which you will learn how to apply these techniques to the analysis of real data.

Techniques to be covered include:

• Cross-tabulations
• Scatterplots
• Covariance and correlation
• Nonparametric methods
• Two-sample t-tests
• ANOVA
• Ordinary Least Squares (OLS)

For best results, students should expect to do a few hours of private study and spend a little extra time in the computer labs, in addition to coming to class.

This short two-hour course will provide an introduction to measurement issues in the social sciences. We design questions (or "survey instruments") to gain information on the concepts we are researching. Two prime considerations in whether an instrument is effective are validity (does our instrument actually measure what we want it to measure?) and reliability (does our instrument give consistent results across a range of different situations?) Considerations of validity and reliability are important across many areas of social science, including the measurement of personality and mental health; attitudes; ability tests; substance use disorders; and cultural differences and similarities between various groups. The course will discuss the importance, concepts, and types of validity and reliability. We will also briefly look at some statistical techniques for validity and reliability checks: Cronbach’s Alpha, Kappa coefficient, and Factor Analysis.

This course will introduce students to the approach called "Exploratory Data Analysis" (EDA) where the aim is to extract useful information from data, with an enquiring, open and sceptical mind. It is, in many ways, an antidote to many advanced modelling approaches, where researchers lose touch with the richness of their data. Seeing interesting patterns in the data is the goal of EDA, rather than testing for statistical significance. The course will also consider the recent critiques of conventional "significance testing" approaches that have led some journals to ban significance tests.

Students who take this course will hopefully get more out of their data, achieve a more balanced overview of data analysis in the social sciences.

• To understand that the emphasis on statistical significance testing has obscured the goals of analysing data for many social scientists.
• To discuss other ways in which the significance testing paradigm has perverted scientific research, such as through the replication crisis and fraud.
• To understand the role of graphics in EDA

This module is an introduction to ethnographic fieldwork and analysis and is intended for students in fields other than anthropology. It provides an introduction to contemporary debates in ethnography, and an outline of how selected methods may be used in ethnographic study.

The ethnographic method was originally developed in the field of social anthropology, but has grown in popularity across several disciplines, including sociology, geography, criminology, education and organization studies.

Ethnographic research is a largely qualitative method, based upon participant observation among small samples of people for extended periods. A community of research participants might be defined on the basis of ethnicity, geography, language, social class, or on the basis of membership of a group or organization. An ethnographer aims to engage closely with the culture and experiences of their research participants, to produce a holistic analysis of their fieldsite.

Session 1: The Ethnographic Method
What is ethnography? Can ethnographic research and writing be objective? How does one conduct ethnographic research responsibly and ethically?

Session 2: Photography and Audio Recording in Ethnographic Work
What kinds of audiovisual equipment, and practices of photography and sound recording, can be used to support an ethnographer’s research process? What kinds of the epistemological, theoretical, social, and ethical considerations tend to arise around possible use of these technologies in anthropological fieldwork and analysis?

Session 3: Relationships in the Field
Ethnographic methodology and participant observation often involve researchers’ positioning in existing networks of social relations. This session is meant to help attendees manage interpersonal relationships with research participants from academic, political, and ethical perspectives. We will discuss when and why relationships in ethnographic fieldwork can be a reason for concern. We will reflect on the social distinctions that emerge when doing fieldwork with other people and their effects on researchers’ decision-making process. Finally, we will think through different fieldwork strategies when working with others, and how they impact the production of ethnographic knowledge.

Session 4: Defining the Fieldsite
This session is meant to equip attendees with the practical skill of how to determine, or work with, the limits of the fieldsite. Drawing on reflections on the challenges of working across sprawling geographical fields, as well as more enclosed geographical sites, we will discuss strategies for either strategically bounding the seemingly infinite fieldsite, or letting the boundaries of an already limited one work for you. We will also discuss how this methodological decision might impact the theoretical insights that emerge from a period of fieldwork, as well as how it impacts the interview process, methods of participant observation, and strategies for developing relationships with gatekeepers and interlocutors

PLEASE NOTE: Update on additional teaching - we have now scheduled the two additional sessions on 18 and 25 February. Further information on their content will follow.

The module will introduce students to the study of language use as a distinctive type of social practice. Attention will be focused primarily on the methodological and analytic principles of conversation analysis. (CA). However, it will explore the debates between CA and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), as a means of addressing the relationship between the study of language use and the study of other aspects of social life. It will also consider the roots of conversation analysis in the research initiatives of ethnomethodology, and the analysis of ordinary and institutional talk. It will finally consider the interface between CA and CDA.

Topics:

• Session 1: The Roots of Conversation Analysis
• Session 2: Ordinary Talk
• Session 3: Institutional Talk
• Session 4: Conversation Analysis and Critical Discourse Analysis

These two sessions will provide a basic introduction to the management and analysis of qualitative data using Atlas.ti. The sessions will introduce participants to the following:

• consideration of the advantages and limitations of using qualitative analysis software
• setting-up a research project in Atlas.ti
• the use of Atlas.ti's menus and tool bars
• importing and organising data
• starting data analysis using Atlas.ti’s coding tools
• exploring data using query and visualization tools

Please note: Atlas.ti for Mac will not be covered.

This module is an extension of the three previous modules in the Basic Statistics stream, and introduces more complex and nuanced aspects of the theory and practice of mutivariate analysis. Students will learn the theory behind the methods covered, how to implement them in practice, how to interpret their results, and how to write intelligently about their findings. Half of the module is based in the lecture theatre; the other half is lab-based, in which students will work through practical exercises using the statistical software Stata.

Topics covered include:

• Interaction effects in regression models: how to estimate these and how to interpret them
• Marginal effects from interacted models
• Ordered and categorical discrete dependent variable models (ordered and multinomial logit and probit)

To get the most out of the course, you should also expect to spend some time between sessions building your own statistical models.

This module is an introduction to ethnographic fieldwork and analysis and is intended for students in fields other than anthropology. It provides an introduction to contemporary debates in ethnography, and an outline of how selected methods may be used in ethnographic study.

The ethnographic method was originally developed in the field of social anthropology, but has grown in popularity across several disciplines, including sociology, geography, criminology, education and organization studies.

Ethnographic research is a largely qualitative method, based upon participant observation among small samples of people for extended periods. A community of research participants might be defined on the basis of ethnicity, geography, language, social class, or on the basis of membership of a group or organization. An ethnographer aims to engage closely with the culture and experiences of their research participants, to produce a holistic analysis of their fieldsite.

Session 1: The Ethnographic Method
What is ethnography? Can ethnographic research and writing be objective? How does one conduct ethnographic research responsibly and ethically?

Session 2: Photography and Audio Recording in Ethnographic Work
What kinds of audiovisual equipment, and practices of photography and sound recording, can be used to support an ethnographer’s research process? What kinds of the epistemological, theoretical, social, and ethical considerations tend to arise around possible use of these technologies in anthropological fieldwork and analysis?

Session 3: Relationships in the Field
Ethnographic methodology and participant observation often involve researchers’ positioning in existing networks of social relations. This session is meant to help attendees manage interpersonal relationships with research participants from academic, political, and ethical perspectives. We will discuss when and why relationships in ethnographic fieldwork can be a reason for concern. We will reflect on the social distinctions that emerge when doing fieldwork with other people and their effects on researchers’ decision-making process. Finally, we will think through different fieldwork strategies when working with others, and how they impact the production of ethnographic knowledge.

Session 4: Defining the Fieldsite
This session is meant to equip attendees with the practical skill of how to determine, or work with, the limits of the fieldsite. Drawing on reflections on the challenges of working across sprawling geographical fields, as well as more enclosed geographical sites, we will discuss strategies for either strategically bounding the seemingly infinite fieldsite, or letting the boundaries of an already limited one work for you. We will also discuss how this methodological decision might impact the theoretical insights that emerge from a period of fieldwork, as well as how it impacts the interview process, methods of participant observation, and strategies for developing relationships with gatekeepers and interlocutors

PLEASE NOTE: Update on additional teaching - we have now scheduled the two additional sessions on 18 and 25 February. Further information on their content will follow.

The module will introduce students to the study of language use as a distinctive type of social practice. Attention will be focused primarily on the methodological and analytic principles of conversation analysis. (CA). However, it will explore the debates between CA and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), as a means of addressing the relationship between the study of language use and the study of other aspects of social life. It will also consider the roots of conversation analysis in the research initiatives of ethnomethodology, and the analysis of ordinary and institutional talk. It will finally consider the interface between CA and CDA.

Topics:

• Session 1: The Roots of Conversation Analysis
• Session 2: Ordinary Talk
• Session 3: Institutional Talk
• Session 4: Conversation Analysis and Critical Discourse Analysis