Training Quantitative Social Science Teachers in the UK: Developing an International Pedagogic Collaborative Network for Quantitative Methods

To address the severe quantitative deficit in British Social Science, it is not enough to increase QM in research methods teaching alone. The embedding of quantitative materials in substantive areas is essential to bridge the gap of knowledge and skills in the application of statistics in social science research. Developing quantitative teaching materials often requires substantial time investment and advanced skills (MacInnes 2009). Insufficient awareness of the vast amount of quantitative social science research also creates a great barrier to an (QM) integrated undergraduate curriculum in most universities. To fill this lacuna, we will bring in expertise in quantitative methods in Europe and North America to strengthen our training provision. We will host a series of workshops to provide an opportunity for face-to-face interaction between these international experts and our intended audience. The workshops will focus on different stages of the undergraduate curriculum and on both QM teaching and subject specific modules. The experts we plan to enlist come from a group of 'power-houses' in quantitative social science in Europe and North America: University of California - Berkeley, University of California - Los Angeles, Wisconsin-Madison, VU University Amsterdam, and KU Leuven. Participants will learn how QM and QM embedded Sociology are taught in the UG curriculum at these universities and will be encouraged to share their own experiences and challenges in teaching QM in the UK.

There will be four two-day workshops (details see Case For Support) with a final one-day closing conference over 18 months with a dedicated website on which participants can interact and share ideas. Our events are open to all UK social science teachers but each workshop is limited to 30 participants to maximise interaction. Both QM and non-QM teachers in the social sciences are welcome to enrol. For Workshops 1 to 4, on Day One our experts will offer master classes on delivering QM or substantive Sociology content. These sessions are not restricted to North American and European materials as participations from UK academics will provide comparative examples. All master classes will be video recorded and deposited online on a password protected project website. Participants will be encouraged to bring examples from their current courses (e.g. lecture notes and seminar exercises) to form a basis for discussion in the breakout sessions. Each workshop will be supported by a pre-designated reading list and preparatory materials hosted on the web. Participants are encouraged to submit teaching materials that they find useful before each workshop so they can be discussed and drawn to the attention of other delegates. At the end of the project a sample of the course materials will be transferred to a public repository with a higher profile (such as ReStore) for wider access.

The project will be evaluated by two surveys. We will ask participants before and after the workshops their competences and practices in teaching QM as well as substantive modules with quantitative research. We are also interested to gauge their attitudes towards using more QM in their social science teaching and awareness of quantitative publications, datasets and resources in their research areas. Formative feedback forms will also be used after each event to allow us to adapt subsequent workshops in the series where there is a clear desire for a change of pedagogic or environmental factors.

This RDI is designed to run alongside our proposed Curriculum Innovation (CI) project, in collaboration with the University of Plymouth. Sample materials from the CI project will be used in these workshops and we anticipate presenting the findings of the CI project at the final conference. However, as participants will be encouraged to work with their own materials and visiting speakers will bring their own resources, this RDI is not dependent on the success of the CI bid.

We are confident that our workshop series will act as a catalyst in raising interest and awareness in QM teaching in the UK social science community. We expect the passion and commitment of our experts in 'mainstreaming' QM in social sciences will enthuse our participants who will then cascade this positive and healthy attitude towards QM to our undergraduate students. As detailed in the 'Pathway to Impact' attachment, our extensive network means that our regional focus in Wales does not preclude national and international participation of this inititative. The impact and visibility of our work is therefore wide ranging and sustainable through continuous collaborative efforts. Other short, medium and long term impact includes the development of an online community of QM and non-QM teachers; the promotion of international collaborative links in QM pedagogy; and the development of a core set of QM skills in undergraduates in social sciences curriculum.

The embedded web-forum we created would provide the focus for debates about QM pedagogy raised in the workshops. Our website will also host videos of master classes, in addition to the wide range of materials and teaching resources produced throughout the course of this series. The website will continue to host these activities after the project funding has ended and will be supported by the School of Social Science at Cardiff University.As well as using high-profile speakers to raise to issue of teaching QM we intend to capitalise on the engagement with the international community through the development of further collaboration. Future collaborative links with institutions outside of the UK will be sought and we anticipate a wide array of exchange activities to follow, e.g. visiting lectureships, hosting research students, postdoc researchers, undergraduate exchange programmes and short-term sabbaticals and international pedagogical placements.

Inevitably the workshops will explicitly explore how a set of core QM skills can be integrated and taught across undergraduate curriculums in UK HEIs. Implicitly this may mean that, through providing a forum for UK academics to identifying and developing common links between substantive areas and institutions, we also start to identify a common set of core QM skills for the UG curriculum across UK social science. Whilst the substantive areas will differ in topics, we may begin to reach a consensus over the level of generic QM knowledge undergraduates will be expected to achieve at each stage of their degree. Currently there is wide variation in what is covered in research method modules and very little communication between institutions (even between disciplines in the same institutions). This will provide a step change towards an agreed set of core QM skills that would enable the pooling together of common resources. This will also mean we are a step closer to establishing a national benchmark in QM capacity for all social science gradautes, increasing employability and signalling to potential employers what they can expect from social science graduates.