81945 - METODOLOGIA DELLA RICERCA SOCIALE E POLITICA

Learning outcomes

The course deals with topics concerning the methodology of socio-political empirical research and addresses statistical data analysis techniques. Students who have completed this course will be able to: a) examine the pros and cons of the main data collection designs; b) explore quantitative data and interpret empirical results; c) analyze quantitative datasets resorting to statistical software; d) define a research problem, formulate research questions, collect data, test research hypotheses empirically, draw conclusions, and communicate research results.

Course contents

The course is dedicated to students who have never studied topics concerning key concepts underlying social research method and techniques, neither theoretically nor empirically.

The course aims to retrace the debate around social science method and offers knowledge about the most common data collection and analysis strategies in the field of socio-political empirical research. Lessons will address the following topics: logic of social research; standard and non-standard approaches to social research; operationalization and operational definitions; concepts and indicators; questionnaires; types of property and types of variables; displaying social research results; basic (descriptive) statistical analysis; monovariate and bivariate analysis; some preliminary notions concerning regression models.

Readings/Bibliography

Regularly attending students

Corbetta P., Metodologia e tecniche della ricerca sociale, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2014 (chapters 1, 3, 5, 7, 13, 14).

 

Non-attending students

Corbetta P., Metodologia e tecniche della ricerca sociale, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2014 (chapters 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14).

Teaching methods

Regularly attending students

Face-to-face lessons (20 lessons, 40 hours) and – only for regularly attending students – computer-based lessons (7 lessons, 20 hours). Computer-based lessons are not compulsory, but regularly attending students are highly encouraged to attend the lab course.

Computer-based lessons will be given starting from the end of October 2022. Computer-based lessons will be given twice a week only the first week (2-hour lesson + 3-hour lesson). All the following lessons will last 3 hours and will be given once a week. In order to facilitate learning and interaction, students attending computer-based lessons will work in relatively small groups in a computer lab.

During face-to-face lessons, students will acquire theoretical knowledge as regards data analysis, whereas in computer-based lessons students will acquire a practical knowledge as regards data mining and will be required to produce and discuss a report based on socio-political phenomena. More precisely, resorting to the use of the statistical software called “STATA”, students will empirically learn how to organize and analyse data and draft reports. Students have the opportunity to download STATA freely on their pc and practice STATA at home too The link to download STATA is https://svc.unibo.it/dipartimenti/SPS/software/default.aspx (please, follow the instructions).

 

Non-attending students

Face-to-face lessons (20 lessons, 40 hours).

Assessment methods

The exam mode varies according to whether students attend and participate in lectures (or not). Attendance and participation status have implications for the exam mode and, partially, texts to be studied.

Regularly attending students

Students who intend to take the exam as regularly attending students are required to participate in lectures.

Students will be classified as “regularly attending students” if the number of skipped lessons is not greater than 5. Attendance will be checked after 4 lessons and students who want to be classified as “regularly attending students” have to fill in the following form by September 30, 2023 https://forms.office.com/e/mfM3sYET04 

Exam for attending students

Regularly attending students will take the first part of the exam: October 18, 2023 at 8,30. The exam consists in a set of open questions on the theoretical part.

The final second part of the exam: December 14, 2023 at 10.

The final second part of exam will be given on December 14, 2023 for regularly attending students only. The exam consists in the statistical analysis of a predefined dataset. Regularly attending students have to perform monovariate and bivariate analyses with STATA. Students will be required to perform specific tasks, such as: description of the main socio-demographic variables, computation and discussion of the most appropriate measures of central tendency and variability; computation of additive indexes; analysis of the relationship between two variables; computation and discussion of the most appropriate indexes/measures.

The exam will be taken on students’ personal computer. Therefore, regularly attending students are required to have a laptop and need to download and install STATA 18. A free version of STATA is available here: https://www.unibo.it/secure/software-stata/ (please, follow the instructions).

Each student is personally responsible for his/her registration in the exam session on AlmaEsami. Registration closes 5 days before the exam. Therefore, it is not possible to sign up for the exam in the previous 5 days before the exam.

Students who change their minds must withdraw their registration no later than the 5 days before the exam. Withdrawal from the exam permits the student to participate in the following exam session and avoid a penalization of 3 points applied to the final score achieved in the exam.

Withdrawal during the last 5 days before the exam is possible in case of unexpected events only (i.e. sickness, bereavement or similar). In this case, students must send (using his/her official account @studio.unibo.it) an e-mail to d.mantovani@unibo.it [mailto:d.mantovani@unibo.it] and must provide a justification. If this procedure is not followed, a penalization of 3 points will be applied to the final score achieved in the exam.

Teaching tools

Materials available on Virtuale.

Office hours

See the website of Debora Mantovani