An Introduction to Quantitative Analysis-Democracy and the Social Sciences
SOC 256
Fall 2008
| Section:
01
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| Crosslisting:
GOVT 366 |
The course is an introduction to the concepts, methods, and tools used in the analysis of quantitative data in the social sciences. It covers topics in descriptive statistics and statistical inference and adopts a hands-on, learning-by-doing approach to explore major sources of social data and to develop the appropriate statistical tools. |
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Essential Capabilities:
Quantitative Reasoning
In this course we will learn how to answer questions in the Social Sciences using publicly available data sets and a variety of statistical techniques from simple descriptive statistics to multivariate regression analysis.
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
SBS SOC |
| Course Format: Lecture / Discussion | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Major Requirement for: (CADS)(DATA-MN)(GOVT)(GOVT-American)(GOVT-Comparativ)(GOVT-Intl.)(HRAD-MN) |
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Past Enrollment Probability: Not Available |
| SECTION 01 |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
1. Agresti, Alan. 2008. Statistical Methods for the Social Sciences,4th edition.
2. Fair, Ray. 2002. PREDICTING PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS AND OTHER THINGS
3. Alison, Paul. 1985. Event History Analysis: Regression for Longitudinal Event Data. Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences
4. Luke, Douglas A. 2004. Multilevel Modeling. Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences
5. Alison, Paul. 2001. Missing Data. Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences
6. Stata Press. 2007. Getting Started with Stata for Windows
We also will read articles from the American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, and Social Forces in addition to critically examining the use (and abuse) of statistics in the mainstream press.
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Examinations and Assignments:
two research papers, a midterm, a final exam, and regular practice assignments. |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
A social science methods class and/or statistics in the math department. If you have not taken one of these courses you may take this course with permission of the instructor. |
| Instructor(s): Long,Daniel A. Times: .M.W... 11:00AM-12:20PM; Location: PAC104; |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 20 | | SR major: 6 | JR major: 5 | | |
| Seats Available: 9 | GRAD: X | SR non-major: 4 | JR non-major: 3 | SO: 2 | FR: X |
| Drop/Add Enrollment Requests | | | | | |
| Total Submitted Requests: 0 | 1st Ranked: 0 | 2nd Ranked: 0 | 3rd Ranked: 0 | 4th Ranked: 0 | Unranked: 0 |
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