Introduction to quantitative approaches to data collection and analysis

Over recent years, due to quick progress in the availability of various "big data", computer power and software development, the teaching of "quantitative methods" has been more and more reformulated into "data collection and analysis". This marks a move from plain applied statistics to a more encompassing approach to data, from their production to their collection, assessment, cleaning, treatment and interpretation. The course will fully fit in this evolution. After a presentation of fundamental concepts, we will review a selection of popular and less popular, recent and less recent, methods and tools for data collection and analysis. We will address both descriptive and explanatory purposes, at uni-, bi- and multi-variate levels. All along we will reflect on the limitations of the standard transposition of econometrics to the social sciences and on the benefits of including innovations from computer science, genetics, linguistics or sociology into our toolbox. In particular we will cover graphical and algorithmic approaches to data analysis. The course will balance as well as possible slide-based lectures, exercises, questions and answers, and discussions of the participants' personal projects.  

About the lecturer 

Philippe Blanchard is an associate professor at the University of Warwick. He worked previously at the Universities of Paris 9 (France), Lausanne (Switzerland) and Pennsylvania State (USA) and has also collaborated in research and/or teaching with universities in Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Singapore, Switzerland and the US. Philippe Blanchard is involved with the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) as a Board Member of the Standing group on Political Methodology, instructor at the Methods School and chair of the School's Academic Advisory Board and is also a member of the board of the Committee on Concepts and Methods of the International Political Science Association (IPSA).