Advanced Statistical Analysis for Social Sciences 02.06-S2-EN-ASA

Course content:

A. Lectures:

• Introduction to the syllabus and to the topic of the course. Overview of the research project behind the course.
• The research process. Asking research questions. Collecting data. Introducing variables.
• Introducing LimeSurvey.
• Frequency distributions. Proportions, percentages, rates. Introducing visualizations of data.
• Measures of central tendency: mode, median, mean.
• Measures of variability: range, variance, standard deviation.
• Normal distribution. Standard normal distribution and standard normal table; the Z value. Sampling theory. Probability sampling. The concept of sampling distribution. The central limit theorem.
• Estimation: confidence intervals for means, confidence intervals for proportions.
• Testing hypothesis. Stating null hypothesis and the research hypothesis. Probability values and Alpha. Errors in hypothesis testing. Testing hypotheses: with one sample; two sample means.
• Cross tabulation. Properties of bivariate relationship. Chi-Square test and measures of association. Concept of statistical independence. Testing hypothesis with Chi-Square. Proportional reduction of error. Lambda, Cramer’s V, Gamma and Kendall’s Tau-b tests.
• Analysis of variance. Testing hypotheses with ANOVA. Regression and correlation. The scatter plot. Linear relationships and prediction. R square. Multiple regression. ANOVA for multiple linear regression.

B. Labs:

• General discussion: objectives of quantitative research; challenges and limitations.
• Defining variables in SPSS. Coding questionnaire data. Automatic import from LimeSurvey. Assignment: focus on a topic of choice of the research on the international students at the Uni of Opole. What can be measured? What would be interesting to learn? What facts? What opinions? What attitudes? Work in pairs.
• Creating a survey, creating groups, editing questions. Managing question types. Assignment: Prepare a research question - and survey items to measure it - for international students of the Uni of Opole. One per a pair.
• Discussing the random sample of international students at the University of Opole is drew. Each student is assigned 4 research subjects to contact regarding taking the online survey. Assignment: the final version of the survey items per pair.
• Assignment: the report on the survey realization process from 4 respondents. The survey finishes. Data are imported to a database in SPSS.
• Outputting frequency distributions in SPSS. Calculating proportions, percentages, rates. Calculating measures of central tendency: mode, median, mean. Calculating measures of variability: range, variance, standard deviation.
• Hypothesis testing in SPSS. Assignment: Estimation of the proportions and means of the pair’s variables from the international students’ research.
• Cross-tabs in SPSS. Assignment: 4 hypothesis per pair tested from the international student’s research.
• Testing hypotheses with ANOVA. Regression and correlation. The scatter plot. Linear relationships and prediction. R square. Multiple regression. ANOVA for multiple linear regression. Assignment: 4 bivariate relationships analyzed for the association and significance.
• Submitting a final report: your own analysis of international students at the Uni of Opole