Quantitative Inquiry for Healthy People and Places

Catalog description

This course is meant to provide an overview of quantitative research methods in the social sciences with a focus on health of people and places. We will guide students through data collection, analysis, and communication, highlighting a diversity of techniques ranging from the traditional (e.g., survey research) to more emergent (e.g., big data, social network analysis). This course is meant to provide exposure to these various methods to facilitate choosing the appropriate methods for a range of social science contexts. Students will be asked to choose one method to explore more deeply through completing a final research paper and presentation. Students are encouraged to bring research ideas and/or datasets to use in the course, although this is not necessary. Throughout the course, we will center data equity and social responsibility as a unifying theme on how to conduct high quality quantitative social science research.