Organised by Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona
Admission requirements
Admission to the European Politics and Society Joint Master Programme
Description
1 The course is aimed to provide the basic statistical knowledge for the use and the analysis
of quantitative data in empirical social science research. The main topics covered are
descriptive statistics, statistical inference, and linear regression. In addition, students will
learn using the statistical software Stata which will be used to illustrate the concepts and
techniques introduced in the lectures, and with which students will work in the lab sessions.
With this class, students will acquire the skills needed to conduct autonomously basic
statistical analysis of social science data. It will also provide them with the foundation
needed to take more advanced classes of social science data analysis.2 This course provides an introduction to regression analysis in the social sciences. The
course builds on students’ knowledge of basic statistics to deepen their understanding of
linear regression techniques, placing special emphasis on problems associated with model
specification and solutions to other violations of regression assumptions. The course also
provides an introduction to regression with independent and binary dependent categorical
variables with logistic and probit models. The teaching approach avoids as much as
possible formalistic-mathematical presentations and instead focuses on the logic that lies
behind the techniques. The lectures combine a theoretical presentation of each subject with
hands-on applications using STATA.
Lecturer
- Prof R. Lachat
Course load
- One weekly 120 minutes seminar session over 14 weeks