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Author:
Paul Lambe
Title:
An Introduction to Quantitative Research Methods in History
Publication info:
Ann Arbor, MI: MPublishing, University of Michigan Library
September 2003
Rights/Permissions: This work is protected by copyright and may be linked to without
seeking permission. Permission must be received for subsequent
distribution in print or electronically. Please contact mpubhelp@umich.edu for more information.
Source:
An Introduction to Quantitative Research Methods in History
Paul Lambe
vol. 6, no. 2, September 2003
Article Type:
Article
URL:
http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.3310410.0006.205
An Introduction to Quantitative Research
Methods in History
Paul Lambe
University of Plymouth
pjlambe@tiscali.co.uk
Abstract
The workshop outlined below introduced students of history to the basic skills required by all
historians to evaluate and present quantitative data in summary statistical and graphical form
using the SPSS statistical package to manipulate, analyse and present British general election
data 1945-2001. The workshop aimed to introduce students to some elementary techniques of
quantitative history as an essential and necessary skill for those interested in the past and to
equip students of history with transferable skills appropriate for the modern job market. The
pedagogic aims included student awareness of interdisciplinary research, increased
understanding and engagement with political science sources, and the development of
confidence to handle quantitative historical evidence.
.01 Engaging Students in Quantitative Research
"All those interested in studying society, past or present, need to take charge of quantitative
data: to command it rather than be the slave of a seeming authority of numbers emerging
from documents or the writings of a small body of numerically inclined researchers" (Hudson
2000:xvii). As Hudson points up, most historians and history students have to accept
uncritically the research findings that underpin many historical arguments because they lack
the skills necessary to evaluate quantitative evidence. Students of history especially need
basic quantitative research skills to enable them to access the treasure-trove of social,
economic and political data that has been amassed in recent decades. Indeed, as projects, for
example, as those funded by the Leverhulme Trust, such as the building of a substantial
collection of computerised nineteenth century census data, come to fruition and the use of the
Geographical Information System which allows data to be spatially mapped, historians and
students of history need to learn the skills to access, manipulate, analyse and present
quantitative data and thereby widen the scope of the evidence base that supports the particular
argument they present, whether it be in journal articles or student essays and dissertations.
Furthermore, the vast majority of students of history will not become historians. However, no
matter which profession they choose, it will certainly involve the manipulation, analysis and
effective display of both numeric and textual data.
.02 The Workshop in Qualitative Research Methods in
History
For all the above reasons it is important that students of history engage in quantitative
research methods and that those teaching history integrate multi-media technology into the
undergraduate history curriculum. With this pedagogic aim in mind the workshop
"Presentations of History: An Introduction to Quantitative Research Methods in History" has
been introduced as a part of a Presentation of History module for stage one history students at
the University of Plymouth. The workshop evolved out of my PhD research which employed
a multi-disciplinary approach to research into post-war British electoral behaviour and
melded the quantitative research methods of the political scientist and the traditional textual
based research methods of the historian in an attempt to provide more nuanced explanations
of political behaviour than individually the disciplines of history or political science have so
far provided.
Course Aims and Objectives
The overall aims of the workshop were to introduce first year history students to the basic
skills of presenting quantitative data in summary statistical, graphical and tabular form. The
workshop aimed to enable history students to combine quantitative evidence, that has been
gathered and produced using a science based approach to research methods favoured by
political scientists, social scientists and, indeed increasingly in some branches of history, with
the text-based interpretative evidence of the historian. In short, the workshop is an exercise in
multi-disciplinary research, taught by a combination of lectures and hands-on computer
laboratory work. However, there are important issues that the history student needed to
confront concerning what is acceptable as knowledge. An explanation in one discipline is not
necessarily accepted as warrantable knowledge in another discipline. Thus, the theory that
underpins the political science approach to the study of electoral behaviour was outlined and
the students were introduced to the concepts of ontology, epistemology and the consequent
methodological differences between how historians and political scientists go about their
work and produce knowledge about political behaviour. This divergence was explained in
terms of the interpretative, subjective, impressionistic, value-laden and non-generalisable
explanations and theories that some positivists accuse historians of producing. This was then
contrasted with the ostensibly objective, precisely measured, accurately and unambiguously
defined, value free and generalisable explanations, theories, predictions and universal laws of
cause and effect that political scientist aspire to, albeit using what some historians would
consider often fragmentary, distorted or biased data.
The upshot of the argument presented to the students was that each approach has its particular
strengths and weaknesses. Nevertheless, each can tell us something about a political
phenomenon. Indeed, in the study of electoral behaviour political scientists increasingly
recognise that quantitative approaches can and should be complemented by qualitative
techniques as used by the historian in order to explain contextual effects that are intrinsically
difficult to measure. Likewise, in the discipline of history, especially political history, there is
a recognition of the need not only to be able to analyse and present succinctly trends in
electoral behaviour, but also the need to be able to engage more meaningfully in scholarly
argument and debate with political scientists (see Dunleavy 1990, Kavanagh 1991, Ramsden
1992, Devine 1994,Rallings and Thrasher 1997, Bale 1999).
No prior knowledge of computers, statistics or social research methods on the part of the
students was assumed or required for participation in the workshop. The workshop aimed to
enable students to evaluate quantitative evidence, analyse and display raw quantitative data,
integrate quantitative and qualitative approaches mindful of their respective strengths and
weaknesses, and to equip students with the skills necessary to mine the multiplicity of
political, social and economic data that remains inaccessible without such skills. The intended
learning outcomes of the workshop included increased student awareness of inter-disciplinary
research and an enhanced ability to engage with political science sources. The module aimed
to improve a history student's ability to evaluate and present quantitative evidence, and to
combine written work that is clearly structured and based upon wide reading of political
history sources with quantitative evidence presented in appropriate graphical, tabular and
statistical form. Thereby the confidence of history students in the handling quantitative
historical data will be improved. The assessed skills element of the workshop was based on
the ability to meld quantitative and qualitative evidence appropriately and effectively in an
essay in response to a specific question on post-war voting behaviour in Britain. The delivery
of the workshop was over six, two-hour sessions, in the form of lectures that preceded
supervised hands-on computer laboratory sessions accompanied by step-by-step guides to
data entry.
Course Schedule
The first lecture entailed an overview of positivism and the quantitative research
methodology that informs the methods used by political scientists in their studies of electoral
behaviour. The concepts of ontology and epistemology and what they mean in terms of
acceptable methods of producing warrantable knowledge in the social sciences was
contrasted with the interpretative approach of the political historian. Students were made
aware of the seeming incommensurability of the quantitative and qualitative perspectives. An
argument was then presented that each approach has its strengths and weaknesses and that
each can tell us something about political behaviour. The main points of the lecture and a
bibliography of texts that dealt with the quantitative/qualitative debate, were outlined in a
student handout. The emphasis of the lecture then turned to the presentation of history and
how numbers are used and can be used by historians as historical evidence. Students were
made aware of the power of numbers and how they can be selected, reconstituted, redefined,
reordered and displayed to suit the purposes of those that gather and use them.
In the following lecture the students were introduced to descriptive statistics and some
elementary statistical techniques that arrange and display quantitative data so that basic
questions can immediately be asked of the data. It became increasingly evident to the
students that a table or a figure that represented the character of a mass of electoral data was
extremely useful, and that by some elementary processing of figures using a statistical
programme on the computer, simple measures of average or typical experience gave some
notion of the range of variation in voting behaviour over time and space. It was shown that at
its simplest level, quantification brought to history the ability to summarise large bodies of
data, to display such data effectively and to express typical measures and values. Students
were made aware of the variety of types of data and types of numbers and what this meant in
terms of the kind of meaningful analysis they can be subjected to. This was followed by an
overview of the growth of quantitative history, its advantages and disadvantages, and the uses
of quantitative methods in the academic discipline of history were exemplified.
The third lecture had as its focus the different types of 'average' that are used to summarise
information from a larger set of numbers, in this case electoral data. Given that the main
purpose of statistics is to describe sets of numbers briefly and accurately it was brought to the
students' attention that the so-called average can be misleading and that there can be a large
departure from it. Indeed, how, for example, the aggregation of electoral data can disguise
significant variations in actual voting behaviour, and that the mere indication of the central
point of a distribution of numbers only allows a partial view, only an indication of typical
patterns of electoral behaviour. From the pros and cons of these measures of central tendency
the lecture then turned to measures of dispersion and how these descriptive statistical
techniques allowed the researcher to gain a broader picture of the data and facilitated the
description of any variation, i.e. the atypical so often of primary interest. This lecture ended
with a recap of descriptive statistics and a very brief overview of what inferential statistics
are and what they can and cannot do.
The following two lectures looked at electoral change in Britain since 1945. First, how
historians have interpreted voting patterns as an expression of underlying social forces and
thereby attributed developments in modern British political history to fundamental shifts in
the social structure and social attitudes, and how political history is characterised by a
sociological approach with electoral behaviour regarded as a barometer of social change.
Studies of voting behaviour at British general elections in the 1945-1970 period were then
reviewed and an era of two-party dominance, electoral stability, strong party identification,
and class and party alignment was presented. In the following lecture changes in the voting
behaviour of the British electorate and how these changes have been measured, evidenced
and explained by political historians and political scientists was discussed. The lecture
explored the decline in support for the two major British political parties and the concomitant
rise of the minor parties, increased regional variations in the distribution of each party's share
of the vote, increased electoral volatility and the debates that accompany these political
phenomenon.
In the fifth and final lecture the requirements of the workshop's essay assignment were
outlined. The general format and presentation of the essay, what was required in terms of
citation and referencing of quantitative and qualitative sources of information and data.
Indeed, how to cite and reference data from various sources including electronic, how to cite
sources of data used in tables and charts, and how to compile a list of tables and charts and
there contents. The essay assignment required the students to meld written work based on
research of textual sources with quantitative evidence. The students were required to answer a
question on electoral behaviour in Britain at post-war general elections and to integrate
appropriate charts, graphs and tables into the text in order to support their central argument.
Handouts accompanied the lectures and summarised each particular lecture and highlighted
recommended reading. A workshop descriptor was given to each student in which the aims,
contents, and requirements of the course were outlined, and a bibliography and glossary of
terms included.
At the last of the six weekly sessions the students had an opportunity to present preliminary
drafts of their work and to resolve any difficulties they may have regarding the assignment,
and of course to complete any unfinished graphs, tables, charts and editing of output they had
been working on during the supervised data processing sessions on the computer.
In the hands-on computer sessions the students were provided with a step-by—step guide and
close supervision where necessary, that enabled students without any prior knowledge of
computing to enter and analyse the electoral data provided and to create a number of
summary statistical charts, figures and tables. At the end of the six one-hour computer
sessions most students had completed many of the charts etc. required and had only to write
up the essay and integrate the quantitative evidence appropriately.
Course Themes and Output
The principal themes of the computer sessions included the assembly and handling of data
sets, the analysis of data and the presentation of findings. Students used the SPSS statistical
package to manipulate and analyse British general electoral data 1945-2001. At the end of the
workshop the students had gained the basic skills needed to assemble data sets by having
entered their own data, had prepared data by assigning names and value labels to variables,
and analysed data using a variety of elementary but nonetheless very useful statistical
methods. The students had learnt how to log-on and open an SPSS data file, to enter data,
create, define and label variables, to run Frequency Analysis and obtain descriptive statistical
information about variables, to create new index variables, to create charts and graphs, to
customise charts and place them in a word document, to print selections from a data set, to
select cases and split files, to exit from SPSS and to save and retrieve the data set.
The output generated by the students included; a multiple-line graph that depicted trends in
each party's share of the vote at British general elections, and a line graph that depicted
changes over time in the two-party share of the vote i.e. the sum of the two major British
parties, Labour and Conservative. The students used the electoral data to create an index
variable that measured the level of net electoral volatility at each successive general election
and presented the results in the form of a bar graph, similarly they created an index variable
to measure trends in class voting at British general elections. Changes in the support for the
Liberal Party were charted in a line graph that depicted the party's percentage share of the
vote at successive elections and contrasted in a further chart with the percentage seats with
which the first past-the-post system rewards minor parties. The students also produced
appropriate tables to accompany the charts and graphs. These were the minimum
requirements of the workshop in order for students to be able to visually present quantitative
data in summary statistical, tabular and graphical form and adequately evidence their
response to an essay question on British voting behaviour in the 1945-2001 period.
Course Evaluation
On completion of the module students received module evaluation forms that gave them the
opportunity to anonymously express their views on the quality of the module. The completed
forms, returned to the faculty office by the students, requested that they circle the appropriate
number for each of the following questions using a scale : 1 = unsatisfactory, 2 = below
average, 3 = satisfactory, 4 = good, 5 = very good/excellent.








Q 1. Were the aims and objectives/learning outcomes of the module presented
clearly?
Q 2. Were the assessment requirements made clear and fully discussed?
Q 3. Was the library provision adequate for the module?
Q 4. On a week-by-week basis, was the module well-organised and effectively run?
Q 5. Was the module taught in a stimulating way?
Q 6. If known, was your written work returned punctually, with adequate feedback?
Q 7. Did the module deliver what it promised, in terms of content, aims, skills etc?
Q 8. All things considered, what is your verdict on this module?
The evaluation form also invited students to comment upon what they particularly liked or
disliked about the module, and to make suggestions for future improvements. Feedback from
the students, (sixteen out of twenty-seven returned their module evaluation forms) was
encouraging. As can be seen in the statistics outlined in the Table 1, the indicators reflect a
positive experience by the students. Library provision apart, the means for six of the eight
indicators were equal to or more than 4, categorised as good on the scale. More specifically,
in terms of how the module delivered on its promised content, aims and skill development,
31% of the students reported satisfactory, 50% good, and the remainder excellent (Table 8).
Furthermore, many students commented upon the improvement to their IT skills that the
module had made. Less pleasing was that 56% of students thought that library provision of
core module texts was only below average to satisfactory (Table 4), a point reiterated in the
comments made by students and one which will be addressed. Although the majority of the
students reported that the module was taught in a stimulating way and was well organised and
effectively run (Tables 4 and 5), there were nonetheless comments made by some students
about the limited number of computers with the SPSS program available for their use on
campus and the difficulty for those students who lived off campus in that few had computers
at home let alone ones with the SPSS program. In the main students were able to complete
the data analysis requirements of the module during supervised laboratory sessions and had
only to integrate their charts, tables and figures into the text of their essays in their own time.
Clearly, for slower students and especially those living off campus without access to a
computer completion of the module meant longer hours at the university and in some cases
extra costs in travel and time. Nevertheless, these are problems that can be overcome by an
increased proportion of teaching time allocated to hands on supervised computer laboratory
and a corresponding decrease in that allocated to lectures. These problems apart, the statistics
outlined in Tables 1-9, and the general tone of the comments reflected a very positive
experience by the students.
Assessment of the module was determined by the student's ability to meld quantitative and
qualitative evidence appropriately and effectively in answer to a specific question on postwar voting behaviour in Britain at parliamentary elections. The assignment required students
to answer one of a choice of questions in no more than one thousand words plus charts,
graphs and tables that they considered appropriate to substantiate their argument. The essays
had to be supported with footnotes/endnotes where appropriate and a bibliography in all
cases. Citation of all sources of data used in tables and charts was also required. The number
of students who completed the module was twenty-two, the remaining five students failed to
present work for assessment. The minimum mark awarded was 41% and the maximum mark
70%. The mean mark achieved was 55.6% and the standard deviation of the marks awarded
8.2%. Every one of the twenty-two students who completed the module surpassed the
minimum pass rate of 40%. One student scored a first class grade of 70%+, seven students
achieved upper-second grades of 60-69%, eight students lower second grades 50-59%, and
six students third class grades 40-49%.
.03 Using Quantitative Skills in Subsequent Courses
These same students are now half way through the second year of their BA History degree
course and have submitted essays that show judicious use of their newly acquired quantitative
skills. When and where appropriate tables, charts and graphs have been incorporated to
evidence arguments and illustrate points that hitherto required extensive explication. For
example, the second year module, Ordinary Lives; Themes from the Social History of Early
Modern England, required students to investigate through primary source material aspects of
everyday life in a particular Devon village/parish and examine the structure of society and the
variety of institutional frameworks which supported that community. The patterns and trends
in birth, death, marriage, work, religious affiliation, indeed the gamut of demographic, social
and economic data in parish records etc. have been exploited in a way hitherto denied to
history students without quantitative skills. The students have been enabled to compare and
contrast the national picture, to and with, the particular trends and patterns they have
discovered, and thereby have been stimulated to investigate and explain the atypical, or
confirm accepted orthodoxies. The ability to use basic descriptive statistical analysis and
summary presentation of data has provided them with a source of historical evidence largely
denied to them in the past and enhanced the quality of their historical research skills. The
essays submitted have added weight to the assertion that the "primary business of the
historian is to explain how the particular occurred, and [that] to deny the use of statistics in
this quest is to dismiss a useful explanatory tool" ( Nossiter 1996:326).
.04 Additional Motivation for Teaching Quantitative
Research
A number of the factors that had motivated the introduction of this module into the history
curriculum have been expounded above. In addition, there had been for some time
encouragement for increased synergy between the History and the Politics departments.
Under the umbrella of the Politics Department, the University of Plymouth has a nationally
and internationally renowned Local Government Chronicle Election Centre that compiles,
analyses and publishes information relating to all aspects of electoral politics in Britain.
Among the centre's currently funded projects are; a project on local democracy, a role as the
British partner in a multi-national study of electoral participation in the European Union, and
the development of a database of post-war local election results. The centre's research
methodology is naturally predominantly quantitative data analysis of aggregate voting data,
however, the qualitative approach of the historian in the analysis of electoral behaviour has
had an increasingly important role to play in some areas of its research. Collaborative
research, whether between a history department and those of sociology, economics or
politics, necessitates post-graduate historians with quantitative skills and the promotion and
nurture of this has in part motivated the introduction of this module to the history curriculum.
An equally important motivation was that the combination of subjects that deal with very
similar material and which attempt to resolve very similar problems, albeit from different
intellectual perspectives is generally accepted as being beneficial to both subjects. In the case
of the disciplines of history and that of politics there is much in the study of each that
complements the other, not least the fact that their combination in this module has brought to
the student's attention the significance of theory and concepts in the study of modern British
political history. Indeed, the combination of these approaches by the module has enhanced
the links between empirical and analytical studies, between political history and political
theory and thereby has widened a student's understanding of the historical and political
themes that shape modern Britain.
The motivation for the introduction of the module was also influenced by planned structural
change at the University of Plymouth whereby departments such as history, which is situated
on a satellite campus is to be relocated to the main campus in order that the scope of
combined honours courses may be expanded. This development is a product of the increasing
need for universities to engage in inter-disciplinary research and thereby attract funding, and
also to enable the university to remain attractive to potential students by offering innovative
courses and modules that develop skills relevant to the modern economy.
Quantification and the use of computers in historical analysis is well established in many
areas of historical research however there is still much prejudice and antipathy towards
quantification by many historians. Pat Hudson delivers a timely counterblast when she writes:
It is perhaps surprising, given the greater opportunities which quantification presents for
writing histories of the mass of the population, that so many historians of popular culture and
society feel so negative about it. Personal papers and official records leave the historian with
more information on the elites than on the working classes, on adult males than on women
and children, on settled natives rather than on the migrant or ethnic minorities and on political
and social activists rather than on the more passive majority of the population. Greater
quantification can help to make best use of the documentation from the past particularly
where that documentation deals with large numbers and with ordinary people (Hudson
2000:7).
Clearly, no such prejudices are prevalent within either the History Department or the Politics
Department at the University of Plymouth, whose respective heads of department have
encouraged and enabled this workshop in quantitative history to come to fruition. The
introduction of this module, as evidenced above, has enhanced the research skills of these
history students, widened the evidential base of their essays, encouraged wider reading and
consideration of sources and materials from associated disciplines, and brought to their
attention the significance of concepts and theory in the study of history. Moreover, it has
illustrated the ontological and epistemological differences between the disciplines of history
and social science disciplines and hopefully alerted them to the manifold possibilities that
inter-disciplinary research presents. On a more prosaic but equally important level it has
improved their IT skills in what has become an increasingly competitive post-graduate job
market.
.05 Bibliography
Bale, T. (1999). "The logic of no alternative? Political Scientists, Historians and the Politics
of Labour's Past," British Journal of Politics and International Relations 1 (2): 192-204.
Dunleavey, P. (1990). "Mass Political Behaviour: Is There More to Learn?" Political Studies
XXXV111: 453-469.
Devine, F. (1994). "Learning More about Mass Political Behaviour; Beyond Dunleavy," in D.
Broughton, D. Farrell, D. Denver, and C. Rallings, (eds). British Elections and Parties
Yearbook 1994, London: Frank Cass, pp. 215-228.
Hudson, P. (2000). History by Numbers : An Introduction to Quantitative Approaches.
London: Arnold.
Kavanagh, D. (1991). "Why Political Science Needs History." Political Studies, 479-495.
Nossiter, T. (1996). "Survey and Opinion Polls." B. Brivati, J. Buxton, and A. Seldom, (eds).
The Contemporary History Handbook, Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 326341.
Rallings,C. and M. Thrasher. (1997). Local Elections in Britain. London: Routledge.
Ramsden, J. (1992). "History Journals for Political Scientists." Political Studies XL: 554-560.
Tables 1-9
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