03383 - Social Statistics

Academic Year 2024/2025

Learning outcomes

Upon completion of the course, the student will be familiar with the main official and unofficial national and international statistical sources and the main methodological and technical aspects of social research. In particular, the student will be able to: use the basic tools of quantitative analysis and verification of results in social research.

Course contents

The paradigms of social research - Quantitative vs. qualitative social research - The sources of Social Statistics - Questionnaires, interviews, research design - Questions and response alternatives - Psychological processes underlying the understanding of questions and answers - Questionnaire administration techniques - Sampling plans - Data analysis - Correlation, causal inference and experimental method.

Readings/Bibliography

Mandatory readings

· Online material in Virtuale

· P. Corbetta, Metodologia e tecniche della ricerca sociale. Il Mulino (Parte I e II: Capitoli da 1 a 8, per iscritti/e SVIC anche cap. 9)

Optional readings

· Martini e A. Sisti. Valutare il successo delle politiche pubbliche. Economia & Management (Parte III: Capitoli 6-14)

. Agresti, Franklin and Klingenberg. Statistics. The art and science of learning from data. Pearson

· Stefano M. Iacus, Guido Masarotto 2021, Laboratorio di Statistica con R. McGraw-Hill Education

Teaching methods

The course participates in the teaching innovation project, combining a hybrid teaching model with integrative digital teaching (DDI).
Teaching methods include both student participation in face-to-face lectures and exercises in computer labs, and self-paced in-depth activities based on a variety of materials, such as slides, web resources, data sets, scientific articles, infographics and data visualizations, data and metadata repositories, opinion polls, and online seminars.


Through the hours of innovative teaching, students will learn how to rework and relate the content and concepts learned during lecture and exercises; they will also learn how to synthesize research questions, arguments, and analysis methodologies used in social studies.

Assessment methods

Course content will be verified by written test.

Teaching tools

Virtuale is the main medium of teaching support. Slides and videos (also in English) will be used. Lectures in computer labs will make use of Microsoft Excel, Stata 17. Hybrid teaching will make use of the Teams platform and Office Online.

Office hours

See the website of Chiara Ludovica Comolli