Patterns in Politics & Society: Promoting the Enrichment of Undergraduate Teaching with Quantitative Methods

The use of quantitative data is far too limited in social science teaching in the UK today. This project will help to fill this gap by providing a step-change in teaching methods for up to 12 Year 1-2 Undergraduate course units. We create then roll out innovations to a national level through a network, online resources and training, as well as training for trainers, in relation to these materials. The topics for the units are Sociology (e.g. how relationships form and what is classified as a marriage or civil registration) and Politics (e.g. egalitarian attitudes and how they change over time). We also support more advanced quantitative methods (QM) in Level 2-3 course units .

The creation of course unit elements has been initiated by our Lecturer partners, some of whom are named in the bid. Each element consists of one lecture (1-1.5 hours) and one tutorial class or formative exercise. We call this a 'course unit component' which might take up a week of study within a course (6 study hours). In developing these, we extend them in the area of innovative pedagogy with more explicit learning outcomes for quantitative methods. We argue that student roles vis-à-vis QM need to be built up via scaffolding (i.e. enriched gradually) from Reader through User to Maker of data; and finally also that the latest data sources and methods need to be disseminated in modernised ways. We aim to show teachers of undergraduate methods how to use a range of means of getting relevant data, revealing our sources and methods through footnotes and a brief resource pack for each course unit component.

We use peer review of our Manchester teachers to gather up expertise, leading to making video segments for online display and workshop use in promoting excellent teaching innovation in QM. We evaluate the project in terms of both student and staff impact.

The creators of the course unit elements initially are Univ. of Manchester lecturers, all named in the bid. Each gets two bespoke consultations and consults with a dedicated, pedagogically-experienced expert in secondary data analysis, who helps with refining a lecture or tutorial task that fits into a given syllabus. Next this material is tested in the classroom and evaluations are conducted. The resulting set of up to twelve topics' materials become the basis of a series of online web pages. A network of users is set up, incentivised by free access to a range of short courses for professional development. This network can include University and Higher Education social science and QM teachers in the UK. Among these users we expect to find a few trainers, i.e. those who provide Quantitative Methods Support services in various Higher Education settings in the UK. The whole network of teachers using QM has access to materials via online file management. The students in the local Univ. of Manchester classrooms also evaluate the materials and their learning experience.
The course materials also become the subject of four workshops:
1. Teaching undergraduates with quantitative data.
2. Making, using and interpreting enriched graphic images.
3. Making, using and interpreting tables: innovations for undergraduate social scientists.
4. Using secondary data the easy way: innovations for teachers of social science.

We will hold 16 workshops in all (some via web), developing the workshop topics to fit users' needs over 3 years.

The immediate beneficiaries of the project are the social science undergraduate teachers who participate in our programme of activities and their students. For the teachers, the impact will primarily be in terms of the incorporation of a wider range of teaching materials, methodologies and supporting evidence in relation to their substantive module topic. A potential secondary impact on this group is an increased confidence in their ability to teach and draw upon quantitative methods, data sources and evidence, and also an increased likelihood in the use of such methods in their own research; as teaching quantitative methods should enable greater confidence in the use of such methodologies in research. For students, the project will develop their skills base by improving statistical literacy, and by increasing their ability to recognise difficulties of interpretation, based upon the underlying social and political complexity and social diversity. This is likely to have a large impact on their employability and future careers.

This project could also have a wider impact on the following groups:
1) The project will help the Royal Statistical Society's getstats program by increasing the statistical literacy of a large number of undergraduate social science students at Manchester (from year 1 onwards) and other universities which participate in the project.
2) Employers in the public and private sectors will benefit from a better skilled graduate workforce that is statistically literate, and familiar with quantitative analysis. One of the direct outcomes of the project is the students' ability to download and assess data from UK, EU and other international datasets, which could be of immense help in assessing evidence and making decisions for local authorities, government agencies, charities, and marketing organisations who constitute a large section of employers of Manchester social science undergraduates.
3) Directors of postgraduate taught and research programmes in the social sciences will benefit from a statistically literate graduate population interested in pursuing postgraduate education. The project could increase the range of methodologies adopted in Masters and PhD dissertations, and could also have an impact on the quality of Advanced Quantitative Methods studentship applications to the North-West ESRC Doctoral Training Centre.
4) The project will also have an impact on ESDS government and ESDS international (our partners in the delivery of the project) by making their materials and datasets more widely used. Wider dissemination of their activities and outputs is one of their key aims. At present, these groups have strong connections with social science postgraduates, but rather weaker links with social science undergraduates (with some notable exceptions among undergraduate economists who use ESDS international resources). The project embeds their resources, trainers and outputs directly into the social science undergraduate curriculum.
5) Members of learned Societies such as the British Sociological Association, Royal Statistical Society, and the Political Studies Association and participants in their annual conferences will be able to benefit from our presentations to these groups.
6) Legacy arrangements of training materials and courses with the Centre for Census and Survey Research (CCSR) will enable CCSR to be a world class trainer not only of quantitative methods but of quantitative methods teaching as well. Furthermore, such legacy arrangements with CCSR will provide ongoing training activities for future social science undergraduate teachers.