Quantitative Methods
Overview
- Credit value: 15 credits at Level 4
- Convenor: Dr Grace Bo Peng
- Assessment: a two-hour multiple-choice test (100%)
Module description
On this module you will gain an understanding of core statistical principles and ideas and learn how to:
- summarise quantitative data effectively and appropriately
- use a statistical software package (SPSS) to input and analyse data
- interpret and report the results.
You will also be able to select and use appropriate statistical methods for a range of different problems and data types.
Learning objectives
By the end of this module, you will be able to:
- explain the difference between descriptive and inferential methods of data analysis
- distinguish between statistical samples and populations
- explain the meaning of categorical data and continuous data, and describe graphical and non-graphical methods for summarising and presenting them
- explain the meaning of research hypotheses and significance testing, and describe the relationship between statistical significance, statistical power, sample size, and effect size
- understand and interpret frequency distributions
- explain what is meant by a confidence interval
- using SPSS: input data, open data files, analyse data and interpret results, and carry out simple data transformations
- explain the basic principles of path analysis and structural equation modelling.