SOC 2015 - Doing Sociology and Criminology: An Introduction to Statistics and Methods

An introduction to basic concepts and tools central to social scientific data analysis, including: basic forms of presentation (e.g., tables, charts, trendlines, scatterplots); basic tools of analysis (e.g., cross-tabulations, correlation, regression, statistical significance); and fundamental concepts of research design (e.g; sampling, causation, independent and dependent variables). This course provides a foundation for subsequent courses throughout the Sociology and Criminology majors. It is organized around online exercises addressing basic issues of sociological and criminological interest and teaches students to explore patterns in data, to conduct analyses, and to interpret findings.