Methods and techniques of research I [ LOPES1350 ]

1.    The importance of methodological discussion and construction for economic and social politics analysis;

2.    Command of basic statistics notions and concepts;

3.    Contribution of descriptive statistics within the framework of a research work;

4.    Exercise on practical cases: interpretation of statistics charts, description and construction of variables, chronological series presentations, data gathering techniques, etc.

This class has a twofold objective. First, it aims at drawing the students' attention to the importance of a research methodology in order to complete analysis in economic and social politics. Second, it intends to support the acquisition of a fundamental know-how as regards (collection of and analysis?) descriptive statistics' basic data for the economic and social politics field. At the end of this class, the student will be able to

1.    initiate the construction of a methodological plan;

2.    call up relevant the descriptive statistics tools

3.    make use of relevant tools such as index, chronological series, inferential tests (types of relationships between different types of variables), correlations, multivariate analysis, in order to produce accurate analysis

This class consists in theoretical presentations and group work where students will practice certain exercises based on texts, data analysis and existing research. It consists not only in initiating students with basic theoretical principles statistics but also in having recurse to descriptive statistics tools. It supports other classes that require students to interpret qualitative data. As such, it represents the first step of the methodological training peculiar to the master in economics and social politics.

This class calls up an adult-based pedagogy that will ensure the recognition of the participants' social and/or professional experiences by the teaching staff. Individual and group works are planned. Students will be certificatively and formatively evaluated;