Using Data to Describe the World: Descriptive Social Science Research Techniques

This course focuses on the skills needed to conduct theoretically-informed and policy-relevant descriptive social science. Students read recent examples of rigorous descriptive quantitative research that exemplifies the use of data to describe important phenomena related to educational and social inequality. The course will help develop skills necessary to conceptualize, operationalize, and communicate descriptive research, including techniques related to measurement and measurement error, data harmonization, data reduction, and visualization. Students develop a descriptive project during the course. Prerequisite: satisfactory completion of a course in multivariate regression.