Teaching Quantitative Methods: Getting the Basics Right

Preface - Geoff Payne and Malcolm WilliamsIntroduction: The 'Crisis of Number' - Geoff Payne and Malcolm Williams Informed Citizens, Competent Social ScientistsMapping the Academic Landscape of Quantitative Methods - Geoff Payne Best Practices in Quantitative Methods Teaching - Jonathan Parker Comparing Social Science Curricula Across CountriesThe Place of Quantification in the Professional Training of Sociologists - Martin Bulmer Some Career ReflectionsChallenges and Opportunities for Developing Teaching in Quantitative Methods - Malcolm Williams and Carole SuttonHow to Teach the Reluctant and Terrified to Love Statistics - Katharine Adeney and Sean Carey The Importance of Context in Teaching Quantitative Methods in the Social Sciences Improving the Teaching of Quantitative Methods to Undergraduate Social Scientists - Jane Falkingham and Teresa McGowan Understanding and Overcoming the BarriersIncreasing Secondary Analysis in Undergraduate Dissertations - Jo Wathan, Mark Brown and Lee Williamson A Pilot Project Mathematics for Economics - Rebecca Taylor and Angela Scott Enhancing Teaching and LearningJorum - Jackie Carter A National Service for Learning and Teaching The Problem, Strategies and Resources in Teaching Quantitative Methods - Matthew David The Way forward

Teaching Interests: Social Research Methods; Social Inequalities, Divisions and Mobilities Research Interests - current: Social Research Methods; Social Mobility; Social Processes in (small rural) Communities; 'Family History' Research Interests - recent: Class Identities; Literacy; Gender; Ethnicity; Poverty. Malcolm Williams is a Professor and Director of the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University. Though primarily a sociologist, his work draws on social statistics and philosophy of science. His primary research interests are methodological, particularly probability, causality and the counting of rare and elusive populations. He was the first researcher to use the method of mark- recapture to measure homeless populations. His empirical research has included work on household formation and dissolution, housing need and more recently issues of pedagogy in the teaching of quantitative methods.

This is a balanced plea for improving the way we teach social science methods and makes a compelling case for addressing the crisis in quantitative skills and reasoning in contemporary social science education. It does not seek to privilege quantitative social science but argues that the loss of quantitative competence is undermining the capacity to develop a mixed methods approach to social enquiry. I particularly value the emphasis on quantitative and systematic reasoning that are part and parcel of parcel of a quantitative approach. But this collection does more than make the case. It also provides evidence based approaches to improving the way we teach quantitative social science. This collection is timely and will equip those charged with the task of teaching quantitative methods to delive

David de VausFaculty of Social & Behavioural Sciences, The University of Queensland



This book ought to be required reading, not only for those who teach quantitative methods, for whom it will be an invaluable resource, but for anyone concerned with the development of the undergraduate curriculum in university social science. Payne and Williams not only make an unanswerable case that current approaches to quantitative methods teaching are quite inadequate, they show clearly how it can, and must, be done better. They place a welcome emphasis on the 'basics'. The challenge is to ensure students have a solid command of the fundamentals of quantitative methods, so that they are not cut off from the vast and growing areas of social science knowledge that uses them. This book is not another instruction manual setting out what should be taught and how. It is much richer than that. It provides a lucid analysis, superbly well informed by the long experience of an impressive collection of practitioners, of what has gone wrong and how it can be put right. It is a book full of insight that teachers will want to consult again and again when thinking about how