Statistics for Social Research

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

[Formerly SOCI 203/SOCI 2903] Sociology Required course (for majors). Prerequisite: One course in Sociology or permission of instructor. This course introduces quantitative analysis in social research, including principles of research design and the use of empirical evidence, particularly from social surveys. The course will cover collecting and describing data, creating visual displays of quantitative information, identifying relationships among variables, and testing research hypotheses. Students are expected to attend two lectures each week and a weekly lab section where they will learn to use the statistical software Stata. Students will be evaluated based on their performance on two midterm exams, one final exam, and several written assignments building toward a final research paper that uses multiple regression to test sociologically-grounded hypotheses on a topic of their choice.