Royal Statistical Society and National Centre for Research Methods
Meeting of the RSS Social Statistics Section
22 May 2007, 2.00-5.00pm, at the Royal Statistical Society, followed by a
drinks reception
Statistics Training for Social Scientists
In response to increasing concerns about the health of quantitative social
science in the UK, ESRC has introduced a number of initiatives with the aim
of promoting a step change in the quality and range of methodological skills
and techniques used by the UK social science community. This half-day
meeting, jointly sponsored by the Social Statistics section of the RSS and
NCRM, has been organised to discuss these recent initiatives, the challenges
faced in capacity building, and possible ways forward.
The meeting will be of interest to quantitative social researchers who wish
to find out about current training opportunities as well as providers of
research methods training. There will be four talks, followed by a general
discussion.
Chris Skinner (Director of NCRM, University of Southampton) will give an
overview of statistics training for social scientists currently supported by
ESRC and its initiatives, including the National Centre for Research
Methods. Malcolm Williams (Methodological Innovations Research Group in the
School of Sociology, Politics and Law, University of Plymouth) will report
on a recent study of the attitudes of sociology students in English and
Welsh Higher Education Institutions toward quantitative methods, and an
earlier study with professional sociologists. Damon Berridge (University of
Lancaster) will describe the development of a suite of disability-friendly
web-based documents and videos, and outline the training component of the
NCRM-funded Lancaster-Warwick Node: Developing Statistical Modelling in the
Social Sciences. Fiona Steele and Sacha Brostoff (University of Bristol)
will give an overview of the training activities carried out under the
ESRC-funded NCRM node: Learning Environment for Multilevel Methodology and
Applications (LEMMA), including the development of a virtual learning
environment (VLE) which contains tutorials, practical exercises, quizzes and
videos.
The meeting will take place at the Royal Statistical Society headquarters,
12 Errol Street, London, EC1Y 8LX (see
http://www.rss.org.uk/main.asp?page=1759 for map and directions). There is
no charge for this event but pre-registration is recommended please email
[log in to unmask] or telephone: 020 7638 8998.
Further details about the presentations can be found at
http://www.cmm.bristol.ac.uk/MLwiN/tech-support/workshops/details.shtml. For
more information about the meeting please contact
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