Quantitative Methods for Policy and Practice

Catalog description

This course introduces students to the use of quantitative research methods and tools that are used to understand, interpret, and inform social scientific issues and the implementation of programs and policies, and the public discourse surrounding them. Examples include those drawn from prominent academic journals in a variety of disciplines and those “ripped from the headlines” that one may see online or elsewhere. Students will delve into statistical methods and the visual display of quantitative information, such that their work and their interpretation of others’ work is rigorous and readily accessible. The statistical methods that we cover include those that are descriptive of the samples we analyze, as well those rooted in inference, such that we can estimate relationships among variables that exist in the population from which the sample is drawn and not merely in the sample itself. These methods include, for example, tests for differences between means or proportions, chi-square analysis, correlation, and simple and multiple regression.