DSOC 4631 - [Using Statistics to Explore Social Policy and Development]

Fall. Next offered 2017-2018. 3 credits. Letter grades only.

Prerequisite: minimally one statistics course. Co-meets with DSOC 5630/EDUC 5630.

J. Sipple.

This course is for upper level undergraduate and graduate students with at least one semester of statistics under their belt, but who struggle to use their statistical knowledge in a practical, productive, and valuable way. Students should also have an interest in historical and contemporary social policy and politics. The course will involve learning how to apply a range of statistical tests to real data in answering practical real-world questions.

In this course, we will explore…
- How and why statistics are used in policy research,
- The relationship between data, methods, and theory,
- Multiple sources of data,
- A full range of statistical tools (from box-plots to t-tests to HLM),
- Issues of reliability, causation, and precision.

Outcome 1: Discuss how and why statistics are used in policy research.

Outcome 2: Discuss the relationship between data, methods and theory.

Outcome 3: Use multiple sources of data.

Outcome 4: Choose from multiple sources of data and employ a full range of statistical tools appropriately.

Outcome 5: Discuss issues of reliability, causation and precision.