Reading and Understanding Statistics Beginners
This module is part of the Social Science Research Methods Centre training programme which is a shared platform for providing research students with a broad range of quantitative and qualitative research methods skills that are relevant across the social sciences.
This course is intended for students with no prior statistical training who wish to improve their comprehension and critical analysis of statistics as presented in academic publications. This is a distinct skill which is often overlooked when studying the application of statistics and one, as with any other skill, which requires training.
- Mphil and PhD students from participating departments taking the SSRMC training programme as part of their research degree
Number of sessions: 4
| # | Date | Time | Venue | Trainer | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mon 14 Oct 2013 14:00 - 16:00 | 14:00 - 16:00 | Sidgwick Site, Lecture Block Room 6 (2nd floor) | map | Katrin Mueller-Johnson |
| 2 | Mon 21 Oct 2013 14:00 - 16:00 | 14:00 - 16:00 | Sidgwick Site, Lecture Block Room 6 (2nd floor) | map | Katrin Mueller-Johnson |
| 3 | Mon 28 Oct 2013 14:00 - 16:00 | 14:00 - 16:00 | Sidgwick Site, Lecture Block Room 6 (2nd floor) | map | Katrin Mueller-Johnson |
| 4 | Mon 4 Nov 2013 14:00 - 16:00 | 14:00 - 16:00 | Sidgwick Site, Lecture Block Room 6 (2nd floor) | map | Katrin Mueller-Johnson |
- Session 1: Reading & Understanding Research Methods Section of Journal Articles
- Session 2: Reading & Understanding Basic Descriptive Statistics and Bivariate Significance Tests.
- Session 3: Reading & Understanding Articles using Observational Data, Scales, and Correlations
- Session 4: Reading & Understanding Articles using Survey data and Regression Analysis
- To enable students to understand the fundamentals of academic papers without recourse to formal statistical theory.
- To introduce concepts and approaches which students will go on to encounter in the rest of their statistical training.
- To provide students with the skills to interrogate a large proportion of quantiative empirical work they will encounter in their research.
Presentations, demonstrations and practicals
- One written critical comprehension of a quantitative paper
Field, A. (2009) Discovering Statistics Using SPSS (3rd ed). London:Sage
- To gain maximum benefits from the course it is important that students do not see this course in isolation from the other MPhil courses or research training they are taking.
- Responsibility lies with each student to consider the potential for their own research using methods common in fields of the social sciences that may seem remote. Ideally this task will be facilitated by integration of the SSRMC with discipline-specific courses in their departments and through reading and discussion.
Four sessions of two hours.
Once a week for four weeks.
Booking / availability