'No More Pointy-Clicking, Numbers Stuff: Building Staff Quantitative Skills.'

在社会科学领域，尤其是社会学领域，越来越多的人意识到，本科生缺乏数字技能和对数据进行统计分析的能力。造成这种情况的原因有很多，这与全国各级数学教学的问题有关；全国计算能力较低；社会学学生认为他们的学科是“艺术”和“人”，而不是“科学”和“数字”；统计分析教学不到位；常为令人费解的行话；缺乏“现实世界”的应用。虽然这个问题开始得到解决，但很少有人注意到教这些学生的工作人员的统计和数字技能水平越来越低。通常情况下，教授学生统计分析的工作人员在这方面只有基本的技能；这通常会导致学生（和员工）对此类课程的满意度较低。这产生了连锁反应，使学生远离这些主题和技能；这意味着越来越少的毕业生将在职业生涯中使用这些技能，或者将这些技能传授给他人。因此，在社会科学领域，解决员工技能水平问题对于解决本科生数字技能差的问题至关重要。本项目旨在解决这一问题，为工作人员培训和支助制订一种综合办法，这种办法得到部门和机构的支助，并将在项目供资周期结束后继续提供支助。它设法通过制订和开办两个数量方法培训班来做到这一点，其中一个培训班将适合只具有基本知识的工作人员的需要，另一个培训班则设法培养一些先前受过统计训练的工作人员的专门技能。员工将获得课程学分，这可以用来获得教师资格。以及支持核心技能的发展；该项目还将专门培训和支持与定量和“数字”工作所带来的教学挑战相关的人员。每年将举办一次研讨会，重点是“什么是有效的”，并在员工之间分享最佳实践。建立同侪辅导制度，让教职员在教学过程中互相支持和发展。通过教学研讨会，鼓励员工在非定量课程中嵌入“数字工作”的空间。该项目旨在说明如何对工作人员的培训和支助采取综合办法。该项目的研究结果将对所有参与定量和统计方法教学的高等教育工作人员有用，为其他人提供在线工作人员支持材料，并将影响教学理论和实践，特别是与社会学相关的理论和实践，以及更广泛地与其他社会科学学科相关的理论和实践。

There is a growing awareness in the social sciences, particularly sociology, that undergraduate students lack numbers-skills and the ability to conduct statistical analysis of data. There are a variety of reasons for this relating to a national problem with maths teaching at all levels; national low levels of numeracy; sociology students seeing their subject as 'arts' and 'people' rather than 'science' and 'numbers'; poor teaching of statistical analysis; often baffling jargon; and a lack of 'real world' application. Although this issue is beginning to be addressed, little attention has been given to the increasingly low levels of statistical and numbers skills among the staff who teach those students. More often than not students are being taught statistical analysis by staff with only rudimentary skills in this topic; this typically leads to low levels of student (and staff) satisfaction with such courses. This has the knock-on effect of turning students away from such topics and skills; meaning fewer graduates will go on to careers using these skills or indeed teaching them to others. Thus, addressing staff skills levels is crucial to addressing the issue, within the social sciences, of poor numbers skills among undergraduates. This project aims to this issue by producing an integrated approach to staff training and support that has departmental and institutional support that will continue beyond the project's funding cycle. It seeks to do this by developing and running two quantitative methods training courses, one of which will be tailored to the needs of staff who have only a basic level of knowledge, and the other seeks to develop specialist skills in some staff who have prior statistical training. Staff will receive academic credit for the course and this could be used to achieve a teaching qualification. As well as supporting the development of core skills; the project will also train and support staff specifically in relation to the teaching challenges presented by quantitative and 'numbers' work. An annual workshop will be run that will focus on 'what works' and the sharing of best practice between staff. A peer-coaching system will be established for staff to provide mutual support and development during teaching. Staff will be encouraged, through the teaching workshop sessions, to embed space for 'numbers work' in non-quantitative courses. The project seeks to demonstrate how an integrated approach to staff training and support can be achieved.The findings of this project will be useful for all HE staff involved in teaching quantitative and statistical methods, providing online staff support materials for others to use and it will influence teaching and learning theory and practice as it relates, specifically to sociology, and more generally to other social science subjects.