In data project 1, students will complete a project, guided through the process of sourcing, familiarisation, managing and analysing secondary data. Drawing from 'Understanding Society', the strengths and limitations of the data will be critically explored as students select to work with numbers, words or images depending on data available.

Week 2-6

2x 1-hour lab-based lectures

1x1-hour tutorial

Should avoid Mondays 12:00-14:00 and Thursdays 10:00-12:00

None

In parallel to this course, students must take:

SPS5070 Understanding Society /EXT51555 (ESRC students only)

Portfolio submission: 2400 words consisting of three equally weighted components.

As one of three "Data Project"-courses, the aim is to give students practice at producing whole projects using a family of data.  In "Secondary Data" project, student will source, manage and analyse existing data to complete a guided research project. Students will draw on key quantitative and qualitative approaches. This first project is supported with written guidance, an interactive moodle and action-oriented lab-based lectures. All students will work with numbers and with words though ultimately, they will have some choice which skills they wish to develop via assessments.

By the end of this course students will be able to:

■ Propose relevant and useful research questions answerable with secondary data.

■ Execute an analysis of secondary data sourced, prepared and stored based on a data management plan.

■ Reflect on the process of data reduction or extraction to create a manageable data sets.

■ Evaluate the process of knowledge production using secondary data.

Students must submit at least 75% by weight of the components (including examinations) of the course's summative assessment.