SOCI 212 – STATISTICS I CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY,
DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY
(SOCIOLOGY 212C)
The Course
This course is designed as an introduction to the basic concepts of descriptive statistics. It will help
you acquire basic skills in understanding and using stats, and prepare you for other statistical
courses you may take in the future. The goal of the class is to understand the logic of statistical
analysis and learn how to critically evaluate basic statistical evidence in sociological literature.
In the first part of the course, we will consider essential topics in descriptive univariate statistics,
such as central tendency, measures of position and measures of dispersion. We will learn about the
techniques for numeric and graphic presentation of various types of variables. The second part of
the course will consider possible relationships between two variables and will examine measures of
association as useful tools of social data analysis. We will learn how to calculate and present a
bivariate table, the correlation coefficient, and other measures of association. The course will
conclude with introduction to regression.
While giving you the theoretical background in basic statistics, the course will emphasize the
practical application of statistical techniques in sociological research. Our aim is twofold. First, we
will learn how to determine statistical techniques appropriate for different research situations.
Second, we will learn how to critically evaluate statistics presented in the current sociological
, literature. Here, we will systematically consider examples of statistics we learn, and see how they
are presented in peer-reviewed sociology articles. We will also examine data from major surveys
and opinion polls to see how this statistics is calculated and interpreted. Survey data will be
analyzed using the SPSS statistical package in each lecture, and introductory computer labs will be
held after each half of the course. By the end of the course you should be able to understand the
logic of the given statistics, know how to calculate it and obtain it in SPSS, and how to interpret and
present this statistics in a sociological paper.
All class materials will be posted on the class website (in Moodle), together will current
communications and updates. The website will include class notes, announcements, changes to the
schedule and solutions for the assignments. It is therefore essential that you have access to
Moodle during all times while working on this class.
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