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Data analysis is a powerful tool to investigate many important and interesting questions about societies and human behaviour. Policy decisions, your Netflix movie recommendations, or targeted advertisements on social media all rely on making sense of data. This course introduces students to basic skills of data analysis, statistical inference, and programming with a focus on applying these skills to questions in social sciences, politics, and media. Anyone can learn statistics. Graduates who can demonstrate skills in data analysis are highly valued by employers. Such skills are in demand in a wide range of sectors - public policy, public health, political campaigns, news media, business, journalism, law, communication, and information technology to name a few. This course aims to provide students with practical experience analysing and interpreting data. We will use powerful R programming language and open-source statistical software RStudio, both are employed routinely across many industries in many countries. The course requires no programming or coding experience.
Anyone can learn statistics. Data analysis and statistics are as important today as never before and this tendency will likely continue to grow. A title from The New York Times highlights these trends: “For Today’s Graduate, Just One Word: Statistics”.Students will leave this course with fundamental knowledge and skills necessary to acquire more advanced skills in social data analysis. This course fulfils the prerequisite for POLS306 Craft of Social Science Research.
After completing this course students will be able to:1. Discuss features and limitations of various quantitative analytical tools and research methodologies Choose and carry out an appropriate statistical analysis for given hypotheses and data.2. Properly interpret and communicate data output to broad audiences.3. Recognize principles of the Māori governance data model, indigenous perspectives, and lived realities. 4. Develop proficiency in programming in R statistical language and free open-source statistical software RStudio.5. Visualize data. 6. Work with data, including data cleaning and merging.7. Describe inferential statistics, probability, and uncertainty estimation.8. Critique, and evaluate statistical claims made in news media, policy reports, and in academic research.
Any 15 points at 100-level COMS or POLS, orany 60 points at 100-level from the Schedule V of the BA.
POLS215
Students must attend one activity from each section.
Daria Kuznetsova
1. Kellstedt, P. M., & Whitten, G. D; The Fundamentals of Political Science Research (3rd ed.) ; 3rd edition; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018 (: Two hard copies of the book are available at the UC library. Both copies are on high demand: one copy can be checked out for 3 hours, and another one for 3 days. You can also purchase a copy for yourself through the Cambridge University Press. We w).
2. Boyle, M., & Schmierbach, M; Applied Communication Research Methods: Getting Started as a Researcher ; 3rd edition; Routledge, 2023 (This book is available as an e-book through the library with PDF download options. I will provide links to book’s chapters on LEARN).
3. Kukutai, T., Campbell-Kamariera, K., Mead, A., Mikaere, K., Moses, C., Whitehead, J. & Cormack, D; Maori data governance model. Te Kahui Raraunga ; 2023 (We will learn about the Maori data governance model. This resource is free and available online. Links will be provided on LEARN).
The course relies on open-access resources and e-books provided through the UC library. We will use the following required open-access book: Jenkins-Smith, H. C., Ripberger, J. T., Copeland, G., Nowlin, M. C., Hughes, T., Fister, A. L., & Wehde, W. (2017). Quantitative Research Methods for Political Science, Public Policy and Public Administration: 3rd Edition With Applications in R. Other required readings will be added to the courses AKO|LEARN page.
Domestic fee $894.00
International fee $4,100.00
* All fees are inclusive of NZ GST or any equivalent overseas tax, and do not include any programme level discount or additional course-related expenses.
For further information see Language, Social and Political Sciences .