QUANT@C is an innovative group within the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University. The aim of the group is to research and develop new pedagogic strategies for student engagement with quantitative methods in the social sciences.

The ESRC Research Development Initiative (RDI) project aimed to train quantitative social science teachers, increasing the number of quantitatively literate, competent and confident Social Science teachers in the UK, and improve the quality of quantitative methods (QM) teaching and materials.

To achieve this a series of workshops were organised where participants could listen to presentations from internationally acclaimed quantitative methods teachers, and engage in discussion on the subject.

The video on the right showcases various extracts from these workshops. The full videos of these sessions will be available under RDI Resources in the near future.

 

Project Background

 

Training Quantitative Social Science Teachers in the UK: Developing an International Pedagogic Collaborative Network for Quantitative Methods (IPCN-QM)

In collaboration with the Wales Institute of Social & Economic Research, Data & Methods (WISERD) and the Cardiff School of Social Sciences, funded by the ESRC under the Research Development Initiative with support from getstats and the Royal Statistical Society (Cardiff RDI ES/J011851/1)

Aims

The key aims of this exciting project were to:

  • increase the number of quantitatively literate, competent and confident Social Science teachers in the UK
  • improve the quality of quantitative methods (QM) teaching in the Social Sciences
  • enable the use of quantitative materials in course design, delivery and assessment in substantive courses as well as methods modules in the UG curriculum across and at each level
  • harness the strength in pedagogy and teaching of quantitative research from North American and European universities
  • Facilitate the international collaboration and pedagogic development of quantitative Social Science, including UK academics who are not explicitly ‘QM teachers’
  • promote a culture of producing and embedding high quality quantitative research through problem-based learning in UK Social Science

 

QUANT@C Speakers

 

Events

These aims were achieved by organising a series of four two day workshops hosted across the UK. A final one-day closing conference was also organised to bring together thoughts and materials from across the series. Academics from across the globe who are both leaders in their field of research and have extensive experience of teaching QM to undergraduates in the Social Sciences were invited to speak.

The four workshops were designed to cover both QM and substantive modules at each level of the UG curriculum using our ‘two-way embedding’ approach, i.e. embedding substantive examples in QM teaching and QM in substantive modules. Two workshops were focussed on QM teaching and two on selected substantive areas of Sociology: Sociology of Education; Social Inequality and Stratification; and Political Sociology.

Before attending each of the workshops participants were invited to submit materials that they find useful for discussion. Materials from each workshop, including videos, audio files and PowerPoint presentations are available below. These materials may be particularly useful to those trying to influence the way in which QM are taught at their institutions.

For further information about ESRC QM Teaching please vsist: www.quantitativemethods.ac.uk/