EDAD 8059 Advanced Quantitative Research Methods
The purpose of this course is to prepare leaders to utilize advanced multivariate statistics to better understand the interrelationships of the correlates of academic achievement. The students will analyze quantitative studies that have used social capital theory, as espoused by James S. Colman and Robert Putnam, as their theoretical frameworks for explaining academic achievement. The students will learn to how to analyze large datasets containing student demographic and achievement data with SPSS statistical software using the following procedures: factor analysis, simple regression, multiple regression path analysis, logistic regression and multilevel modeling. The students will learn the conceptual and statistical tools for operationalizing social constructs, like social capital and socioeconomic status, into relevant indices that can be controlled for in multivariate analyses. The students will learn how to apply each statistical technique learned in the most appropriate and defensible fashion, and by the end of the course will know how to use their new knowledge to best parse out the individual-level, school-level, and district-level effects on individual-level student outcomes. The students will use the information learned in this course to either set up the methodology section of their dissertations, analyze data for their dissertation, or both. Classroom and home exercises will include hands-on analysis of actual student and professor provided datasets. Class readings will include research studies that have employed the statistical procedures learned in class.