Recently, evidence is essential for discussions of social problems and their solutions, and the evidence is usually based on social surveys or official statistics.
This course focuses the basic concepts of social surveys and statistics (descriptive statistics, correlation, test, estimation, etc.), and shows some applications of statistics in the society and the social science.
Through this course, students learn the basic concepts of statistics and nurture the ability to tackle social issues with them.
By the end of this course, students will be able to:
1) Understand the basics of social surveys and statistics.
2) Understand nature of statistical methods (descriptive statistics, correlation, test, estimation).
3) Understand how apply statistics to the social sciences.
descriptive statistics, cross tabulation, correlation, spurious correlation, test, estimation, social survey
✔ Specialist skills | Intercultural skills | Communication skills | ✔ Critical thinking skills | ✔ Practical and/or problem-solving skills |
The instructor will lecture about basics of statistics and social surveys. Students should solve some problems and submit their answers at the end of each class. At the end of term, students must submit the final report.
Course schedule | Required learning | |
---|---|---|
Class 1 | Introduction: statistics in social science | Understand the idea of statistics through some applications of statistics in the social science. |
Class 2 | Social survey 1: sampling | Understand how social surveys collect data. |
Class 3 | Social survey 2: question | Understand how we ask the respondents questions properly. |
Class 4 | Descriptive statistics: center and variance | Understand descriptive statistics. |
Class 5 | Inferential statistics: test and estimation | Understand test and estimation. |
Class 6 | Relation: cross tabulation and correlation | Understand cross tabulation and correlation. |
Class 7 | Spurious correlation: controlling variables | Understand spurious correlation and controlling variables. |
Class 8 | Future of statistics | Consider the applicability of statistics. |
Textbooks will be specified by the instructor.
Textbooks will be specified by the instructor.
Students’ course scores are based on class reports 30% and the final report 70%.
Nothing required.