This course is designed to introduce you to and help you become familiar with quantitative methodologies critical to your development as a social scientist. The introductory methods course has two primary aims. First, students will be introduced to quantitative methodology that researchers and policymakers use in answering social, political and economic questions. Second, the course will equip students to use one or more of the discussed techniques in their MSc dissertation.

By the end of the course, you should be able to understand basic research methods, apply them to real world problems and evaluate their use in published research. Students will also acquire competency in performing statistical analyses using a popular statistical program (R).