This is a draft of the presentation that will be given at the HEA Social Sciences annual conference - Teaching forward: the future of the Social Sciences. For further details of the conference: http://bit.ly/1cRDx0p Bookings open until 14 May 2014 http://bit.ly/1hzCMLR or external.events@heacademy.ac.uk ABSTRACT Although there is much potential for students, and other interested parties, to explore the attitudes, opinions and circumstances of various individuals and groups in the datasets provided by UK Data Service, uptake remains limited. This paper details the results of a HEA funded project that aimed to engage students with quantitative techniques through the development of a series of student-led workbooks, worksheets, and associated teaching strategies. The paper considers some of the difficulties of adopting an ‘Inquiry-Based Learning’ (IBL) approach within the context of communicating quantitative research and outlines some considerations for others wishing to adopt a more narrative and iterative approach to the teaching of quantitative methods in the social sciences.

1. Identity, citizenship, and social
statistics?: Developing narrative
resources to help to develop an
understanding of introductory
social statistics in a variously
‘connected’ world
Dr Tom Clark and Dr Liam Foster
t.clark@sheffield.ac.uk and l.foster@sheffield.ac.uk
22/05/20144© The University of Sheffield

2. Aims
• To development a series of inquiry-based
workbooks for social science
undergraduates who are ‘numerically able
but statistically averse’.

3. The problem - Why are these
workbooks needed?
• The need to promote statistical skills among social scientists is
perhaps more prominent than ever (Nuffield/ESRC/HEFCE funding).
• There is a lack of accessible material.
• They don’t specifically relate to a dedicated social research base,
and particularly the material that is found within the teaching
datasets of the ESDS.
• The ‘lack of sustained and widespread mathematics training among
secondary school students and their fear and suspicion of taking up
maths or statistics once in university creates a substantial
impediment to quantitative methods training’ (Parker et al., 2008:
11).
09/05/2014 © The University of Sheffield

4. Our solution - What are we
doing?
• Redeveloping workbooks used within the Undergraduate Research
Methods courses in our home department (see Foster and Clark, 2013).
• ‘Research Rationales, Research Questions and Research Hypothesis’
• ‘Designing Variables and Understanding Levels of Measurement’,
• ‘Describing Data’,
• ‘Using Chi-Square, Phi & Cramer’s V’
• A guide to analysing data using PASW (IBM SPSS)
• And developing new ones:
• ‘the Mann-Whitney U test and Eta²’
• ‘the Kruskal Wallis H test
• Tukey’s HSD’; and ‘Spearman’s Rho’
09/05/2014 © The University of Sheffield

5. Our solution - What are we
doing? - Example
• Rationale: “It is estimated that about a sixth of the total UK population currently
smoke cigarettes. With around 100,000 deaths caused every year from smoking
related causes, the estimated cost to the NHS is approximately £2.7 billion a year for
treating diseases caused by smoking (ASH, 2012). Although it is well documented
that smoking rates are markedly higher among lower socio-economic groups (see
Barbeau et al, 2004, for instance), there is less research specifically on the impact of
the level of education on smoking habits. In the context of the changing landscape of
Higher Education particularly, where people are attending University in higher
numbers than ever, this paucity of research is surprising (although see Bratti and
Miranda, 2010). Using data from the Health Survey for England (2011: Teaching
Dataset), this study will examine the impact of the level of education on smoking
behaviour. More specifically, the project will:
• Explore current levels of smoking/non-smoking in England
• Examine whether there is an association between level of education and smoking
status “.
09/05/2014 © The University of Sheffield

6. Our solution - What are we
doing? - Example
• State the null and alternative hypothesis for the research questions where
relevant.
• The first question – explore current levels of smoking/non-smoking – is a
descriptive question. It seeks to describe a general distribution of data. It
does, not, therefore, need a hypothesis. The second question, however,
does need a null and alternative hypothesis. It should be something like
this:
• There is no association between level of education and smoking status.
• There is a significant association between level of education and smoking
status.
09/05/2014 © The University of Sheffield

7. Evaluation – what the students
were saying before ...
• ‘My current level of ability in the area of quantitative
research is relatively low and in a formative stage. I feel
that the literature surrounding doing quantitative
research is often quite inaccessible and dry, and I am
not a natural mathematician. I would like to learn more
about quantitative research as quite often interesting
and/or relevant facts within sociology that support points
both in my own essays and within general reading are of
a quantitative statistical nature’. Flo
09/05/2014 © The University of Sheffield

8. Evaluation – what the students
were saying before ...
• ‘I feel that my biggest weakness at the moment in
quantitative social research is statistical techniques and I
find that it makes quantitative research seem more
complex. In addition, as it is an important part of the
research process I feel that in order to consider
conducting a quantitative social research it would be
essential for students to learn the basics in the simplest
form’. Elina
•
09/05/2014 © The University of Sheffield

9. Evaluation – what the students
were saying before ...
• ‘I think I’m weaker on analysis because we haven’t ever
had to actually do it, and the whole maths thing puts me
off a little bit. I think it would be good to learn more about
quantitative research ... I think that most students who
do sociology that I know struggle with thinking
mathematically, which puts them off wanting to do
anything with statistics because it seems a bit
complicated’. Esther
09/05/2014 © The University of Sheffield

10. Evaluation - what the students
were saying after ...
09/05/2014 © The University of Sheffield

11. Evaluation - what the students
were saying after ...
09/05/2014 © The University of Sheffield

12. Evaluation - what the students
were saying after ...
09/05/2014 © The University of Sheffield

13. Difficulties and challenges
• Time
• It isn’t research
• Do we have to do it?
• Integrating it
• But ...
• We have found that since we introduced such
quantitative resources research methods modules have
become more popular, more students do quantitative
dissertations and able to evaluate quantitative research.
09/05/2014 © The University of Sheffield

14. •SHOW WORKBOOKS
09/05/2014 © The University of Sheffield