1. Applied quantitative analysis a practical introduction SOSM-405 (5 cr) Session 1: Getting started
Tue 8-10, Period III, Jan-Feb 2018
Faculty of Social Sciences / University of Helsinki
Teemu Kemppainen

2. Contents Practical matters Learning diary Preliminary schedule
Research process
Cross-sectional surveys & Q-Q debate
Some key concepts (intuitive approach)
Populations and samples in surveys
Data
Variable and covariation
Hands-on!

3. Practical matters Seven meetings, same time and place
I’m available for tutoring after the class
Tue 10-11:30
By appointment, at Unioninkatu 35 (U35)
5 credits (5 x 27 h = 135 h in total)
independent work (max 15 hrs/week, 8 weeks)

4. Learning diary Collect all the weekly exercises here
indicate clearly session and exercise numbers in the text using titles and subtitles
After the last session: final set of exercises (a bit more demanding)
Title page: course name, your name, student number
Table of contents
When asked to use literature, use citations in the text
List references in the end (style e.g. Kemppainen 2017, p 96 ->)
Own reflections about the course, learning process, substance matter
Length pages
Finnish, Swedish or English
Mid-term DL Sun 4th February
Final DL Sun 11th March
Pass / Corrections / Fail
Max one week late: lots of extra work
More than one week: I cannot promise anything, probably fail
Kemppainen T (2017): Disorder and insecurity in a residential context. A study focusing on Finnish suburban housing estates built in the 1960s and 1970s. PHD thesis, 193 pages. City of Helsinki, Research series, 2017:2.

5. Preliminary schedule
Sessions 1 & 2: Basics, descriptives, data management, statistical inference
3 & 4: Data reduction (sum variables, exploratory factor analysis)
5 & 6: Regression (OLS, logistic)
7: TBA…maybe a guest lecture or more advanced regression topics

6. Some readings (e-books in Helka)
Julie Pallant: SPSS Survival Manual

7. Some readings (e-books in Helka)

8. Some readings (e-books in Helka)

9. Some readings (e-books in Helka)
In Helka: ”SPSS”  97 e-books!

10. Research process: a version
Deduction
Confirmatory
”The Thought” : ideas, thought, intuition, guesses…prior studies
Theory
Idea
Interpretation
Induction
Exploratory
Concepts
Data analysis
Results
Empirical work
”The World” : observations, trials, data collection, analysis, testing…
Cf. What to write in the text (thesis, research article, scientific monograph)? Depends on the discipline and research area.
E.g. A strict IMRD narrative in QUAN studies. Different text styles and conventions. Check what’s required.

11. What we will and won’t discuss in this course
QUAL data: ethnographic observations, texts, pictures, in-depth interviews…”Text?”
QUAN data: registers, trials, surveys…”Numbers?”
Longitudinal and cross-sectional
This course: cross-sectional surveys
Survey: structured data collection with a questionnaire
Opinions, attitudes, experiences, subjective well-being etc.
Structured: questions and response options pre-determined
Brief excursion: ”incompatibility thesis” / paradigm wars vs. triangulation / mixed methods

12. Populations and samples in surveys
Random sample
Non-response
Data
Different sampling techniques
Statistical inference, study objectives

13. Data: it’s just a table !

14. …and numbers!
Co-variation, covariance, correlation, association, relationship…
Variation,
variable,
variance,
differences
Meta-data (variable and value labels) & paradata (e.g. data collection  reporting!)

15. Hands on!
Let’s start practising…