The Cathie Marsh Institute for Social Research short course training programme offers training at introductory, intermediate and advanced level in research methods and quantitative data analysis aimed at academics and applied researchers in the public and private sectors.

Courses take place in the Humanities Bridgeford Street Building, University of Manchester.

CMIST has three courses coming up in February which have available places:-

· Introduction to Cluster Analysis – 2 March 2017

· Introduction to Data Analysis 1 – 6 March 2017

· Introduction to Data Analysis 2 – 7 March 2017

Introduction to Cluster Analsyis

Date: 2 March 2017, 10am-4.30pm

Instructor: Kitty Lymperopoulou

Level: Introductory

Booking: http://www.cmist.manchester.ac.uk/study/short/booking/

Fee: £140 for those from educational, government and charitable institutions; £195 others.

Outline

The course covers cluster analysis concepts and methods in SPSS. It is aimed at those with an interest in developing practical skills to implement clustering techniques and those with an interest in area typologies and classifications

Course Objectives

Participants will develop an understanding of clustering methods and procedures in SPSS. By the end of the course they will be able to carry out preliminary analysis to select and transform variables for cluster analysis, choose a clustering method, evaluate and choose cluster solutions, interpret clusters and present cluster analysis results. Hierarchical and non-hierarchical cluster analysis will be applied to 2011 Census local area data to produce an area classification to group areas with similar overall population characteristics into clusters.

Prerequisites

Participants should have familiarity with SPSS and an understanding of basic data analytical techniques including correlation and regression analysis.

Introduction to Data Analysis 1

Date: 6 March 2017, 10am — 4:30pm

Instructor: Jen Buckley

Level: Introductory

Booking: http://www.cmist.manchester.ac.uk/study/short/booking/

Fee: £140 for those from educational, government and charitable institutions; £195 others.

Outline

This course provides an introduction to the theory and methods of quantitative data analysis, focussing on the social survey. It has an emphasis on hands-on learning, with a series of practical sessions using a statistical software package such as SPSS to explore the British Social Attitudes Survey Dataset.

Course Objectives

The course will:

· Introduce participants to survey data as a key quantitative resource for social science research;

· Introduce the structure and properties of survey data and consider the process by which variables in a dataset are derived;

· Explain the distinction between interval and discrete variables;

· Consider strategies for exploratory data analysis including methods for describing and summarising variable distributions;

· Provide participants with a conceptual understanding of the stages involved in exploring the relationship between variables;

· Provide essential skills of data manipulation including selecting sub-sets and recoding;

· Introduce the visual representation of variables in scatter graphs, bar charts and histograms

Introduction to Data Analysis 2

Date: 7 March 2017, 10.00am-4.30pm

Instructor: Jen Buckley

Level: Introductory

Booking: http://www.cmist.manchester.ac.uk/study/short/booking/

Fee: £140 for those from educational, government and charitable institutions; £195 others.

Outline

This course provides an introduction to the theory and methods of quantitative data analysis of relationships between variables, focussing on the techniques of Chi-square tests, correlation and linear regression.

Course Objectives

The course will examine relationships between variables covering:

· The concept of statistical significance

· The theory and execution of a simple chi square test for relationships between categorical variables

· How to test whether a relationship between two interval variables exists using correlation

· How to describe relationships between variables using a statistical model based on linear regression methods

· The use of control variables to control for confounding variables

· The interpretation of statistical results and their use in making research conclusions

Prerequisites

Participants should have a basic familiarity with a statistical software package such as SPSS. Ideally participants should also have taken Introduction to Data Analysis 1 or have equivalent experience.

Full details of all CMIST Courses and booking via http://www.cmist.manchester.ac.uk/study/short/list/

CMIST | G9 Humanities Bridgeford Street | University of Manchester | Manchester | M13 9PL

Tel 0161 275 0796