Quantitative Methods for Public Policy

Catalog description

This course provides an introduction to applied statistical techniques in the social sciences and is tailored, in particular, to students pursuing the master of science degree in the Department of Criminology. It is taught as a basic course in statistics and presumes minimal mathematical or statistical background. We’ll begin with a brief introduction to the research process. We’ll then cover the computation, interpretation and understanding of basic descriptive statistics, distributions, hypothesis testing, measures of association and finally regression analysis. Depending on how much time we have, I will cover several more advanced topics in regression analysis at the end of the semester.