Training Quantitative Social Science Teachers in the UK: Developing an International Pedagogic Collaborative Network for Quantitative Methods

要解决英国社会科学严重的数量赤字，仅仅在研究方法教学中增加数量是不够的。在实质性领域嵌入定量材料对于弥合社会科学研究中统计应用方面的知识和技能差距差距至关重要。开发定量教学材料通常需要大量的时间投资和高级技能（MacInnes 2009）。对大量定量社会科学研究的认识不足也给大多数大学的综合本科课程设置造成了很大的障碍。为了填补这一空白，我们将引进欧洲和北美的定量方法专门知识，以加强我们的培训。我们将举办一系列研讨会，为这些国际专家和我们的目标受众提供面对面互动的机会。研讨会将侧重于本科课程的不同阶段，以及QM教学和学科特定模块。我们计划招募的专家来自欧洲和北美的一组定量社会科学的“权力中心”：加州大学伯克利分校、加州大学洛杉矶分校、威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校、阿姆斯特丹自由大学和鲁汶大学。参与者将学习如何在这些大学的UG课程中教授QM和QM嵌入式社会学，并鼓励他们分享自己在英国教授QM的经验和挑战。 将有四个为期两天的研讨会（详情请参阅支持案例），最后一天的闭幕会议超过18个月，有一个专门的网站，参与者可以互动和分享想法。我们的活动向所有英国社会科学教师开放，但每个研讨会仅限于30名参与者，以最大限度地提高互动。欢迎社会科学领域的QM和非QM教师报名。对于研讨会1至4，在第一天，我们的专家将提供关于提供QM或实质性社会学内容的大师班。这些会议不限于北美和欧洲的材料，因为来自英国学者的参与者将提供比较的例子。所有的大师班将被视频记录和存放在一个密码保护的项目网站在线。我们鼓励学员从他们当前的课程（例如课堂讲稿和研讨会练习）中拿出例子，作为分组讨论的基础。每个讲习班都将得到一个预先指定的阅读清单和网上提供的准备材料的支持。鼓励参加者在每次讲习班之前提交他们认为有用的教材，以便其他代表讨论和注意。在项目结束时，课程材料的样本将被转移到一个更高知名度的公共存储库（如ReStore），以便更广泛地访问。该项目将通过两项调查进行评估。我们将在研讨会之前和之后询问参与者他们在教学质量管理以及定量研究的实质性模块方面的能力和实践。我们也有兴趣衡量他们的态度使用更多的QM在他们的社会科学教学和定量出版物，数据集和资源在他们的研究领域的认识。每次活动结束后，我们还将使用形成性反馈表，以便我们在系列研讨会中调整后续研讨会，其中有明确的教学或环境因素变化的愿望。该RDI旨在与我们提出的课程创新（CI）项目一起运行，与普利茅斯大学合作。这些研讨会将使用CI项目的样本材料，我们预计将在最后一次会议上介绍CI项目的研究结果。然而，由于鼓励参与者使用自己的材料，来访的演讲者将带来自己的资源，因此RDI并不依赖于CI投标的成功。

To address the severe quantitative deficit in British Social Science, it is not enough to increase QM in research methods teaching alone. The embedding of quantitative materials in substantive areas is essential to bridge the gap of knowledge and skills in the application of statistics in social science research. Developing quantitative teaching materials often requires substantial time investment and advanced skills (MacInnes 2009). Insufficient awareness of the vast amount of quantitative social science research also creates a great barrier to an (QM) integrated undergraduate curriculum in most universities. To fill this lacuna, we will bring in expertise in quantitative methods in Europe and North America to strengthen our training provision. We will host a series of workshops to provide an opportunity for face-to-face interaction between these international experts and our intended audience. The workshops will focus on different stages of the undergraduate curriculum and on both QM teaching and subject specific modules. The experts we plan to enlist come from a group of 'power-houses' in quantitative social science in Europe and North America: University of California - Berkeley, University of California - Los Angeles, Wisconsin-Madison, VU University Amsterdam, and KU Leuven. Participants will learn how QM and QM embedded Sociology are taught in the UG curriculum at these universities and will be encouraged to share their own experiences and challenges in teaching QM in the UK. There will be four two-day workshops (details see Case For Support) with a final one-day closing conference over 18 months with a dedicated website on which participants can interact and share ideas. Our events are open to all UK social science teachers but each workshop is limited to 30 participants to maximise interaction. Both QM and non-QM teachers in the social sciences are welcome to enrol. For Workshops 1 to 4, on Day One our experts will offer master classes on delivering QM or substantive Sociology content. These sessions are not restricted to North American and European materials as participations from UK academics will provide comparative examples. All master classes will be video recorded and deposited online on a password protected project website. Participants will be encouraged to bring examples from their current courses (e.g. lecture notes and seminar exercises) to form a basis for discussion in the breakout sessions. Each workshop will be supported by a pre-designated reading list and preparatory materials hosted on the web. Participants are encouraged to submit teaching materials that they find useful before each workshop so they can be discussed and drawn to the attention of other delegates. At the end of the project a sample of the course materials will be transferred to a public repository with a higher profile (such as ReStore) for wider access. The project will be evaluated by two surveys. We will ask participants before and after the workshops their competences and practices in teaching QM as well as substantive modules with quantitative research. We are also interested to gauge their attitudes towards using more QM in their social science teaching and awareness of quantitative publications, datasets and resources in their research areas. Formative feedback forms will also be used after each event to allow us to adapt subsequent workshops in the series where there is a clear desire for a change of pedagogic or environmental factors.This RDI is designed to run alongside our proposed Curriculum Innovation (CI) project, in collaboration with the University of Plymouth. Sample materials from the CI project will be used in these workshops and we anticipate presenting the findings of the CI project at the final conference. However, as participants will be encouraged to work with their own materials and visiting speakers will bring their own resources, this RDI is not dependent on the success of the CI bid.