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Courses & Learning Tools

Summer Program in Quantitative Methods of Social Research

The ICPSR Summer Program in Quantitative Methods of Social Research offers a comprehensive, integrated program of intensive courses in research design, statistics, data analysis, and social methodology. Basic methodological and technical training is offered, along with opportunities for advanced work in specialized areas. The Program combines lectures and discussion with the practical application of quantitative methods in state-of-the-art computer labs. Students apply their knowledge by conducting hands-on data analysis.

Undergraduate Research Paper Competition

ICPSR sponsors an annual competition to highlight exemplary undergraduate student research papers based on quantitative data. The objective is to encourage undergraduates to explore the social sciences by means of critical analysis of a topic supported by quantitative analysis of a dataset(s) held within the ICPSR archive and presented in written form.

Information on prizes and deadlines can be found on the Competition site.

Instructional Resources

Web-Based Instructional Modules

Exploring Data Through Research Literature

Exploring Data Through Research Literature is an instructional module that uses ICPSR's Bibliography of Data-Related Literature to teach students how to conduct literature research in the social sciences. Each exercise requires students to locate academic journal articles and consider those articles within an encompassing disciplinary context. EDRL aims to support the traditional collaboration of faculty and librarians by illustrating how to effectively use digital resources to teach and conduct scholarship and research.

Investigating Community and Social Capital

Investigating Community and Social Capital examines Robert D. Putnam's arguments about the decline of social capital, as discussed in Bowling Alone, to introduce students to quantitative social science research methods. Students learn to replicate and extend Putnam's analysis. Students learn about concepts such as units of analysis, levels of measurement, and longitudinal versus cross-sectional analysis. Exercises include creating line graphs to look at change over time, creating measures such as a social capital index, and running crosstabulations and correlations. This resource is intended to enhance courses in disciplines such as political science, public administration and policy, and sociology.

Online Learning Center (OLC)

The Online Learning Center (OLC) is the result of discussions with teaching faculty about using data in their classrooms and the challenges such undertakings can entail. Instructors directed ICPSR to develop tools that would: 1) quickly locate relevant data that are easy to work with and that nicely demonstrate the concept(s), and 2) enable the instructor to customize the materials to their own teaching approach and syllabus.

To that end, Data-driven Learning Guides, a core element of the OLC, were created for the express purpose of making ICPSR data more user-friendly for classroom exercises. The guides are designed for faculty to use for in-class demonstrations or to assign as supplemental activities for giving students greater exposure to concepts.

Supplementary Empirical Teaching Units in Political Science (SETUPS)

Sponsored jointly by ICPSR and the American Political Science Association (APSA), the SETUPS site features Voting Behavior: The 2004 Election, an instructional module based on the 2004 National Election Study (NES) data. Authored by Charles Prysby and Carmine Scavo, the module offers students the opportunity to analyze an accessible dataset drawn from the 2004 National Election Study (NES). The site also offers a discussion of the background to the 2004 election and voting behavior in national elections, and exercises that explain how to analyze the data and understand the results.

MyClass

MyClass is a utility that allows instructors to batch-create MyData accounts for students. MyData accounts are required to use any of the ICPSR-related instructional tools, such as the sites listed above. With this utility, you can focus class time on teaching, rather than guiding students through account creation.

Other Instructional Materials

One of ICPSR's goals is to develop and disseminate resources for undergraduate and graduate education in the social sciences. In addition to the Web-based modules referenced above, ICPSR has many data-driven instructional materials for use in the classroom.

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