040088 UE Empirical Methods I (MA) (2023W)

This course is an introductory class on writing empirical papers which precedes the follow-up class “Empirical Methods II”. The goal of this introductory course is for students to learn the fundamental techniques and obtain the basic skills required in empirical research, with the ultimate goal of being able to put-up a full empirical paper. Our theoretical sessions will cover tools and stages required for running empirical projects (e.g. research design, measurement types of variables, methods of data collection, basic descriptive statistics) with a special focus on the pre-evaluation stage of an empirical work. Our applied sessions will introduce the students to basic STATA skills, allowing them to produce descriptive statistics and prepare their data for a future (follow-up class) regression analysis. Students will participate by reading and presenting scientific articles in some of the highest ranked strategy journals and working with practice, as well as real-world datasets. Knowledge gained in this course is also applied during a project where students actively develop the necessary steps for conducting their own empirical research projects. In this spirit, students are required to produce the front-end of an empirical paper and provide basic descriptives, using real-world data. Being an introductory class, this will be followed by putting-up the back-end of the empirical paper and testing the propositions in Empirical Methods II.

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 held in one of the PC-labs at the OMP 1. The class is hence held in-person with two selected (non-theory, individual meetings) sessions held via Zoom. For both online meetings, 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! The majority of all sessions, as well as the exam will be held in person. The exact format of individual sessions will be announced during Session 1!