Course Introduction

Patrick McGillicuddy
pm512@columbia.edu

This course is designed to teach you methods for collecting and analyzing quantitative data, with a focus on applications to problems and policies related to organizations and management.  We will begin with simple statistical techniques for describing and summarizing data and build toward the use of more sophisticated techniques for drawing inferences from data and making predictions about the social world.  You will conduct a survey research project over the course of the year that will take you from the formulation of research questions, through survey design, sampling, and data collection, to data analysis and presentation of findings. 

The course assumes no previous exposure to statistics and a high school level of math achievement. 

The course will progress on parallel tracks; one dedicated to research methods and the other to statistical methods.  We will use the survey research projects as a vehicle for learning about the logic of data and empirical inquiry.  You will have an opportunity to help shape the parameters of the project topics; you will choose one project topic within which you will then individually carve out research questions of interest to you.  By the end of this semester, you will have joined a project team; the team will have collectively developed a survey instrument (questionnaire) designed to collect quantitative data bearing on your research questions.

On the statistical track, you will learn a range of statistical techniques beginning with descriptive statistics and moving quickly to more advanced statistical techniques for making inferences from those measures.  By the end of the semester you will be introduced to multiple regression analysis.  The research methods and statistics tracks will converge at various points over the course of the year as you use you knowledge of statistics to inform your data collection methods and then subject the data you have collected to the statistical techniques you have learned.