Course Introduction: Preface to Social
Research and Quantitative Methods

Coye Cheshire (coye@ischool)
 Office 305A
 Office Hours: Thursday 5-6:30pm

Course Website:
http://courses.ischool.berkeley.edu/i271b/f12/

Part lecture, part skills development
 Usually one major topic per week
 Some time devoted to working in groups
on research design and data analysis (labs)

Three major course sections
 Research Methodology (weeks 1-5)
 Probability, Intro Stats, STATA(weeks 6-9)
 Bivariate and Multivariate Analyses (weeks
10-15)

Primarily lecture, but I am a very strong
proponent of discussion and Q/A when it
helps others understand concepts and issues.

My slides will be uploaded to the website
after each class. If I have notes, they are in
the powerpoint document as well.
 If I forget to upload the slides, feel free to harass
me (non violently if possible) until I give in.

Statistics (4th Edition)
Freedman, Pisani and
Purves
Buy the paperback and/or used copies
through Amazon to save money

Social Research Methods
(1st edition)
 Bernard, Russell
Used copies of the 1st Edition through
Amazon are ~ $25 plus shipping

I will distribute a few readings as pdf’s or link
to articles. These will be posted on the
website at least a week in advance (but
usually earlier)

All course examples will use
STATA

You can purchase a STATA 12
6-month license ($65)
through the grad plan:
http://stata.com/order/new/edu/gradplans/gp-campus.html
Bring your laptop to class if
applicable.
We will devote class time in many
sessions (starting in week 6) to
work with statistical software
(STATA).
If you choose not to bring a laptop
to class, I encourage you to sit
with anyone who has a statistical
software package when we begin
to use it in class.

Three “lab assigments” (30%)
 Always started in class, due following week
 Most are group assignments, but some require individual
deliverables from your group work.

Final Exam (60%)
 Will cover major topics in class
 Will allow you to use the dataset of your choice.
 Challenging, but will be a take-home exam allowing plenty
of time to complete.

Participation and Instructor Discretion (10%)

You will have good knowledge of common research methods
used in quantitative research (sampling techniques, surveys,
experiments)

You will be able to locate and use secondary numeric
datasets from various sources (Roper, ICPSR, Berkeley Data
Center, etc)

You will be able to prepare, recode and error-check numeric
data.

You will be able to use a general purpose statistical package
to conduct and interpret statistical analyses

You will understand basic univariate statistics, bivariate
statistics and linear regression
And, what do you want to get out of this course?
Part I: Research Methods

Defining and justifying research
problems for quantitative
studies

Theory and Measurement

Sampling, Survey Data
Collection, Questionnaires

Experimental design

Choosing methods to match
research problems
Part II: Probability and
Statistics

Probability and Sampling

Working with structured data
(recoding, error checking)

Univariate statistics

Probability and normal
distributions
Part III: Bivariate and Multivariate
Analyses

Bivariate Statistics (correlation, t-test)

Chi-Square (analyzing nominal data)

Linear Regression (bivariate and
multivariate)

Reading:
 Bernard Chapters 1 and 2
 I will send out an electronic copy for just these two
chapters since your books may not arrive for a few
days.

We will begin with an intro to foundational
concepts in social research methods,
common terminology.

Come prepared to discuss