Teaching “Quantitative Methods of Analysis" in Social Sciences

In this paper the organization of the course “Quantitative Methods of Analysis in the Social Sciences” is presented. In order for students to use advanced multivariate techniques, to be able participate in a survey, to record, process and analyze data and finally present results, the teaching methods that are put in practice are: lecturing methodological techniques, explanatory survey, tutoring and online teaching. This course addresses to students of the second year of the core courses and follows upon the courses: “Mathematics in Political Science” and “Statistics for the Social Sciences”. The course focuses on the concepts and interpretation of clustering, correspondence analysis and factor analysis. Emphasis is laid on the prerequisites of their application, on their relative credibility, and on their respective appropriateness to available data. Students learn how to implement multivariable techniques throughout National and European data. Additionally tutorials are held at the Laboratory of the Applied Political Research. The aim of tutoring is for the students to learn how to process and furthermore analyze data. In the same time students have access to supplementary educational material. The material is available at the Course Management System platform named “Opencourses” wherein students have access to methods and techniques mentioned above through videotaped lectures, module presentation, extra exercises and guidelines for personal studying independently of time limiting factors of conventional teaching. Our goal is the incorporation and constructive use of the Internet and web technologies in the teaching and learning process. The other part deals with an annual explanatory survey that is conducted before or/and after the students’ elections in Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Students are divided into teams, so every team undertakes a faculty and takes a sample according to the faculty’s population. The survey records students’ opinion about the benefits, services and problems and students’ vote behavior. Fare and foremost, students learn how to observe elections, study and analyze candidates’ profile, manifesto and parties. Thus, they learn how to distinguish quantitative and qualitative methods and how to combine them. Every team consists of 4 to 5 members including the team leader who has the responsibility to run the survey. The purpose of the survey is to learn how to organize a survey, to use sampling techniques, to coordinate team members, to participate in a survey, to record data, to process and analyze data and finally the presentation of survey’s results. When the survey is completed every team records and codes the data, analyze them and present the results. The evaluation for the students is based on verbal and written examination. The learning outcome is that students are focused on advanced multivariate techniques, can participate in a survey, record data, and process and analyze data and finally present results.