General Catalog 2024-25

Lecture, two and one half hours; discussion, one hour. Introduction to fundamentals of data analysis and statistics, focusing on application of statistical methods in social problems research. Students develop skills and strategies for evaluating research evidence, and for comparing and synthesizing results of studies that adopt different research methodologies. Descriptive statistics, inferential statistics, probability, statistical tests, correlation, and causation, and regression analysis. Other topics include organizing quantitative data (e.g., tables, graphs), methods for describing data with respect to central tendency, dispersion, and association. At course end students should be able to perform data analysis using appropriate software, to interpret results, and to make critical evaluations of quantitative social science research. Letter grading.