Statistics / quantitative skills courses

[dodi1978]

Hi,

I am a social science researcher working entirely in qualitative paradigms at the moment. I am currently working my way into a new research area which requires me to at last read statistical research, but in the long run, it would also be good to learn how to set up a project that will use quantitative pradigms
Can anyone point me to any courses in this area?

Many thanks!

Doris

Would your university allow you to enrol on an undergraduate (or postgrad) medical statistics module? We are allowed to do this if the module lead/course director is ok with it.

HangingChads - they might, I hadn't thought about that possibility! I was thinking more about CPD type stuff though. And it would have to start right from scratch (and I mean it.... I don't do numbers...)!

I actually just found one myself:

www.rss.org.uk/training-events/training/public-courses/introduction-to-statistics/

If anyone know of any alternatives, please let me know.

RSS are good. NCRM may also have useful courses - www.ncrm.ac.uk/training/

Look up courses on R which is a major programming language for stats. there are probably some on coursera etc.

There are two parts to this -
quantitative research design and quantitative analysis. The statistical analysis is the most daunting BUT if you have a firm grasp on research design it becomes easier. I am on my phone right now so can't post links my suggestion is to make sure you are secure in the design and then move to the statistics. What sort of quantitative research are you likely to be doing? And yes to R but to start I would recommend JASP which is more intuitive as well

Are there quants people in your department or faculty? If so I would recommend going to a few seminars and seeing how it's done. Key things in quants research are a) measurement (does the observed variable equal or proxy what you are truly interested in, do people answer the questions in the same way etc) causation (is the set up such that I can conclude that changes in variable X cause changes in variable Y) sampling (is it random or as good as) and generalisability ( can I draw implications for the world at large from my study ). The actual mechanics of running regressions etc are relatively easy