Understanding data, understanding society: using quantitative narratives to embed evidence, argument and data within the undergraduate curriculum

Repeated reports by the ESRC have pointed to the shortage of social science undergraduate students with even basic quantitative methods skills. This is a situation that is harmful to the on-going viability and vitality of the UK's research base and to its economy. It also limits the ability of these otherwise well educated citizens to contribute to social debates framed numerically and/or statistically, a situation that hinders participatory democracy. It is a problem that is self-reinforcing. As fewer students engage with quantitative methods so there is less opportunity for knowledge transfer in these methods to the next generation of students.

The solution to this fragile situation cannot simply be more stats classes if these fail to overcome the participants' fear, anxiety or scepticism of quantitative methods. It simply is not enough to insist that such methods are important and should be learned. Their value and power as a tool for generating credible evidence and informing social debate must be demonstrated in a way that captures the students' imaginations and interests. At a foundational level it must be understood that the specialist language of statistics combines with intimidating-looking equations to create considerable learning barriers for students. The 'stories' of how statistics can be used for good or for ill in society need to be told in a more compelling way.

To that end, this project is to create a cross-disciplinary social sciences curriculum that has at its heart quantitative narratives as a way of teaching the principles and concepts of quantitative methods. A quantitative narrative is a form of shared storytelling that teaches concepts in statistics by beginning with social issues and controversies and uses those to capture the students' interests. To do so, we present the students with some relevant story and guide them through a discussion to reveal the back story - an underlying statistical concept. For example, the ballot for Olympic tickets is a good example of an experimental design that didn't generate the outcomes many people wanted and would have regarded as fair, despite it being random. It provides an ideal case study - a narrative - for an in-class discussion about how the students might have designed the process, what objectives they would value, what they understand by randomness and so forth. In this way important statistical concepts are revealed, discussed and learned.

The curriculum will be taught and evaluated as a cross-disciplinary, year 1 open unit at the University of Bristol. The curriculum will be supported by a range of e-learning material including interactive visualisations and graphics linked to core teaching datasets provided by the Economic and Social Data Service, an accompanying e-book, lecture recordings and the development of vignettes or case studies to support critical thinking and class discussion. On the basis of the evaluations investigating the students' attitudes and understanding of quantitative methods before and after the unit, the material will be adapted before being made available to other users online, at no charge and under a Creative Commons licence that permits them to be reproduced or adapted for non-commercial use.

The project draws together a cross-disciplinary team with a track record of curriculum innovation for quantitative methods teaching. It offers the opportunity to embed the host institution's internationally recognised expertise in the teaching and research of quantitative methods at an early stage of the students' learning. It makes the connections between the state-of-the-art in quantitative methods and the need to assist the students better in their learning pathways to it. By doing-so the project will build capacity in quantitative methods within the host institution and elsewhere.

The ESRC Undergraduate Quantitative Methods Initiative is a response to the recognised shortage of skills in quantitative methods amongst UK social sciences students. It is amongst them that the impact of this project is targeted by giving them support and encouragement to gain interest in such methods at the earliest stages of their university learning.

Therefore, the prime and immediate beneficiaries will be the students themselves as we support them in their learning and help equip them to gain the sorts of knowledge and transferable skills that will set them in good stead for further academic study or in their careers. Our purpose is to build capacity in such methods at the University of Bristol knowing that this knowledge will diffuse outwards as these students go on to study in other institutions or find employment in a diverse range of jobs. Within three or four years our aim is for a sizeable proportion of all students studying within the social sciences at Bristol to have better understanding and interests in quantitative methods and for that expertise to begin filtering into the workplace. The ESRC recognises the links between knowledge of quantitative methods and the threats to the UK's economic competitiveness if such skills are eroded. In the long term it is society-at-large that benefits from the ESRC's initiative and it is to this goal the project will play.
Other beneficiaries will be students and their teachers at other institutions who want to take or to develop a foundational course in quantitative methods. There is no reason why access to our learning material should be restricted to those in higher education (and nor would we want it to be) so there is potential for there to be other beneficiaries, too, wherever foundational teaching in quantitative methods is sought.

We do not envisage any direct commercial benefits from the research in terms of outputs that can be packaged and sold. It is not in the spirit of the research for there to be so. The focus of the research is on improving the capacity of undergraduate students to use and to understand quantitative methods, with all the benefits to them, to society and to the economy that the ESRC has identified. In a very real sense we hope one of the main beneficiaries will be UK social science itself.