040081 UE Empirical Methods II (MA) (2021S)

This course complements “Empirical Methods I” and builds on the knowledge acquired in that introductory class. The goal of this follow-up course is for students to learn how to work with data and analyse it against the backdrop of a given research question. After a brief recap of the contents of “Empirical Methods I”, we will delve into data analysis both in an applied and theoretical manner. Our theory sessions will mainly focus on descriptive and inference statistics for cross-sectional data. Our applied sessions will revisit the programming skills and theoretical know-how of students and introduce data analysis using statistical programming software. Students will participate by reading and presenting scientific articles in some of the highest ranked strategy journals. Knowledge gained in this course and its preceding class “Empirical Methods I” is also applied during a project where students actively conduct their own empirical research.

This course is highly interactive and built around the idea of a laboratory setup as is typical for social sciences. The setup necessitates certain software and IT equipment. To provide every student the same opportunity to successfully participate in the course, it is usually held in one of the PC-labs at the OMP 1. Since the current situation seems not to allow this setting, but we still want to maintain a high quality and interactive class, this semester, the class will be held online using MS Teams or Zoom. In this spirit, students are required to ensure stable Internet connection and be able to join using their web cameras as well! Hence, not only an audio connection, also a video connection is required!