210027 UE BAK 4 Quantitative Methoden der empirischen Sozialforschung (2021W)

This course is complementary to the theoretical course “210014 VO BAK 4 Quantitative methods in the empirical social sciences (2020W)” taught by Professor Markus Wagner. The aim of the course is to equip students with the basic applied skills for easy data projects. The content of the course includes descriptive univariate (scale levels, position and dispersion measures, frequency tables) and bivariate (cross tables, correlation measures for different scale levels) analysis methods, as well as the graphic representation of results and the basics of inferential regression statistics. The core focus of is course will be hands-on and practical. The 210014 VO lecture component will cover more abstract ideas. Students are strongly encouraged to attend the lecture as well.

Students will learn the basic “tools” to conduct quantitative data analysis, using the statistical software R. Theoretical concepts of descriptive and inferential statistics will be briefly discussed in class, in combination with their practical application using existing databases typical of those in the field of political science. By the end of the course, you should be able to describe a dataset and conduct basic inferential analysis using the main commands implemented in R.

At the end of the course, students should know and understand the basic methods and simple statistical procedures in the social sciences, as well as be able to interpret and evaluate the results of quantitative social research in research and the media. You should also be able to develop questions yourself and answer them using quantitative methods and be able to present the results of quantitative research appropriately.

The primary method of the course will be digital/online using Moodle and BigBlueButton. This will allow for the maximum number of students to attend synchronously.