Participants must be enrolled as PhD students in an institution of tertiary education. A precondition for receiving the course diploma is that the student attends the whole course (3 ECTS for 3 days and 5 ECTS for 3 days plus the 2 optional days). 

Doctoral students face a range of challenges concerning empirical methods. We first survey registered students to learn more about their particular research interests and perceived skilling needs, and adapt the course to ensure instruction and practical application of appropriate quantitative research methods. 

The course provides students with some fundamental theoretical and hands-on knowledge about quantitative methods in Stata. It does so in a pedagogic context that recognizes the complementarity between qualitative and quantitative methods.

This course will help students become users and critical consumers of research employing quantitative methods, while preparing them for a number of possible challenges they may face in their research. The course is for beginners, for students who need to refresh the basics of quantitative methods, and for students with limited or no prior experience in Stata.

1. An Introduction to General Empirical Method: History, Culture, and Science and the Role of Critical Realism for Research Insight - Classical and Statistical Heuristic Structures- Complementarity Among and Between Insight, Heuristic Structures, and the Research Field 
   
   
2. Statistical Procedures of Interest (Content will vary to a degree, depending on pre-course student survey data)
   
   
3. a) A Session of Review and/or Remediation:Statistics as description, Statistics for inference, how these differ: the normaldistribution and the Central Limit Theorem 
   
   
4. b) Introduction ofStata(enter data, clean data, writing procedures, data preparation) 
   
   
5. c) Estimation and explanation of statistical models (t-tests,correlation analysis,regression analyses as indicated and to the depth needed) 
   
   
6. d) Interpretation of resultsand critical reflection on their validity 
   
   
7. e) Class discussions and/or individual sessions on the application of quantitative methods to individual research questions

Charles Tackney = CT; Manuele Citi = MC; Jan Michael Bauer = JMB 

At the end of the course, doctoral students should be able to: 

1. know and understand the historical and cultural contexts within which contemporary research methods function. 
2. specify the complementarities of qualitative and qualitative research within the general empirical method. 
3. know the quantitative approaches appropriate to their specific research interests. 
4. use statistical packages needed for their doctoral research needs.
5. evidence a nuanced ability to consider empirical research questions in organizational and management studies, so they may 
6. better understand empirical literature, with a view to improving critical reading ability, in order to g. suggest appropriate quantitative methods to address any range of research questions. 

Add-on: + 1 ECTS. Students who opt for this add-on have the possibility to develop a paper after the end of the course where they apply some of the statistical techniques learnt in class. They will receive an ad hoc review, with a one-to-one feedback session. 

Additional information 
It is possible to choose the basic course with a duration of 3 days. An extension of 2 days is possible if you want to go beyond the absolute basics. 

Additionally, we would like to offer an opportunity for participants to receive advisement on specific quantitative methods issues involving their research. A student who chooses this option would send a 10-page paper describing a concrete methodological issue s/he is dealing with, including possible approaches to solve the issue, with questions of interest or concern. The paper would have to be submitted no later than 6 weeks after the course. Feedback on the paper and specific questions presented would be provided in writing or conversation within a reasonable timeframe. Participants who wish to use this opportunity and engage in the arrangement are eligible to 1 ECTS extra 

When registering, students need to decide whether to opt for 3 days, 5 days and whether to hand in a paper or not.  

• (A 2008) - Acock, Alan (2008). A Gentle Introduction to Stata. College Station: Stata Press. Pp. 189-206, 211-212. 
  
  
• (A+ 2019) - Amrhein et al. (2019) Scientists rise up against statistical significance. Available at: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00857-9 
  
  
• (G 2017) - Gelman, Andrew (2017). Ethics and Statistics: Honesty and Transparency Are Not Enough. CHANCE, 30(1). 

• (G 2018) - Gelman, Andrew (2018). The Failure of Null Hypothesis Significance Testing When Studying Incremental Changes, and What to Do About It. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 44 (1).  
  
  
• (I 2014) - Ioannidis, John (2014). How to Make More Published Research True. PLoS Medicine, 11(10). 
  
  
• (L 2005) - Lonergan, Bernard J.F. (2005). Preface, pp. 3-9, Chapter 1, Elements, pp. 27- 31, and pp. 126-139 on the complementarity of classical and statistical heuristic structures. Insight: a Study of Human Understanding. Volume 3 of the Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan, (Frederik E. Crowe and Robert M. Doran, Eds.). Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 
  
  
• (M&J 2017) - Mehmetoglu, Mehmet & Jakobsen, Tor Georg (2017). Applied Statistics using Stata – A Guide for the Social Sciences. SAGE, London  
  
  
• (W+ 2019) - Wasserstein, Ronald L., Schirm, Allen L.  & Lazar, Nicole A. (2019) Moving to a World Beyond “p < 0.05”, The American Statistician, 73:sup1, 1-19,   

Other readings as suggested by the doctoral student skills and interests assessment survey. 

Recommended literature 
Greene, W.H. (2011). Econometric Analysis, 7th edition, Prentice Hall. 

Wooldridge, J.M. (2008), “Introductory Econometrics: A Modern Approach, Thomson South- Western, 4th edition. 

Weiers, R. (2007), “Introduction to Business Statistics,” Cengage Learning Services 

Baum, C. (2006). An introduction to modern econometrics using Stata. College Station, TX: Stata Press.