Tell me and I forget, teach me and I remember, involve me and I learn: understanding statistics through work-placed learning
1. Tell me and I forget, teach me and I
remember, involve me and I learn:
Understanding statistics through
work-placed learning
Professor Jackie Carter
University of Manchester Q-Step Centre
co-director
2. Our approach to work-placed learning
• Title quote variously
attributed …
• Benjamin Franklin
• A Chinese proverb
• A native American proverb
• www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_
york_city/entry/tell_me_and_i_forget_
teach_me_and_i_may_remember_inv
olve_me_and_i_will_lear/
• Also Kolb’s learning cycle
(Source, Lowry and Hood, 2004, p 267)
3. University of Manchester context
–Q-Step
–CMI Cathie Marsh
Institute for Social
Research
–Social Sciences at
University of
Manchester
–Social Statistics
4. Who am I and how did I get here?
– Mathematics with its
Applications graduate
– Background in maths,
stats, applied social
science and teaching
– Quantitative methods
teacher
– Work-placement lead
– Employability and
business engagement
lead
5. Outline and purpose of the talk
– Methods Training
• Ugrad and PGrad
– Work-placed
learning
• Methods training
• Applied data
analysis
• Data and stats skills
developed
• Outputs
• Outcomes
– Seeking
connections
– Especially
international
exchange
opportunities for
students and
researchers
– Collaborations
6. The numeracy crisis in social sciences
• The Smith review,
published July 2017
• https://www.gov.uk/government/p
ublications/smith-review-of-post-
16-maths-report-and-government-
response
• More than two decades
of publications and
interventions in the UK
• Government response
– ESRC graduate level 1+3
programmes
– Investment in data
structure including the
UK Data Service
– Attention now turning to
teaching data skills
– More ‘data science’
courses emerging
7. Q-Step National Programme
• British Academy,
Economic and Social
Research Council and
The Nuffield
Foundation
• Quantitative social
science skills gap
• 10 year step-change
intervention –
‘additionality’
• 15 Q-Step Centres plus 3
affiliates
• www.nuffieldfoundation.org/q-step
8. University of Manchester’s Q-Step Centre
• Making numbers a
normal part of the
social science
curriculum
• Getting critical about
numerical data
(statistics, graphs,
charts, risk,
probabilities etc.)
• Is it a duck or a rabbit?
12. Methods up to year 2
• Substantively led
• Includes numeric data,
secondary data sources
• Real-world data
focussed
• Invited speakers
• A pre-requisite to
applying for the Q-Step
internships
• Descriptive statistics up
to regression (varies)
• Mostly bivariate
• Data analysis in the lab
• Key statistical concepts
in the context of the
substantive subject
• SPSS or R
13. Internships - Key facts
• Paid at living wage
• 8 weeks is the norm, July and August
• Manchester, London, Sheffield, Glasgow,
Liverpool, Washington DC (Melbourne?)
• Students assigned a mentor/line manager from
the host organisation and an academic mentor
from the Q-Step team
• They’re competitive – application plus interview
with the host
• Pre-internship 2-day training given in June
15. • Data-driven and research-led –
real world social science in
practice
• Designed by the host
organisation
16.
17. Project Outputs - required
• Celebrate rather than
assess
• Outputs
3 reflective pieces
A poster
A student conference in
November to celebrate the
interns’ experiences with
posters and ten 3 minute-
presentations
• www.manchester.ac.uk/q-
step/student-stories/
19. Additional outputs
• Academic papers
• Black, K., Geary, R., French, R.,
Leefe, N., Mercer, C., Glasier, A.,
Macdowall, W., Gibson, L., Datta,
J., Palmer, M., et al (2016). Trends
in the use of emergency
contraception in Britain: evidence
from the second and third
National Surveys of Sexual
Attitudes and Lifestyles. BJOG,
123(10), 1600-1607. <a
href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/
1471-0528.14131">[More
Information]</a>
• News articles
Nathaniel Lusty
20. Follow on - third year dissertations and
Q-Step prizes
Overall Winner
Leonardo Carella - Politics and
International Relations Who are the
‘Left Behind’? The Status Stratification
of UKIP Support
Sociology Prize
James Needham Exploring the Factors
that Affect the Friendship Patterns of
International Students
Politics Prize:
James Montgomery How the Scottish
National Party Came to Rule Scotland: A
Valence Politics Explanation
Linguistics Prize
Alberto Moron-Hernandez Paraphrasing
verbal metonymy through computational
methods
Criminology Prize
Shared between:
Hannah Watts (Criminology)
Reporting Rape: Understanding the
Characteristics of Women Who Did Not
Report Their Experience of Rape to The
Police
Viktoriya Trifonova (Social Anthropology
and Criminology)
Adolescent subjectivity and adult social
circumstances: an examination of dynamic
factors influencing desistance
21. Outcomes
Outcomes
• Close working
relationship with host
organisations
• Employment and
postgraduate prospects
• Improved
understanding of
relevance of our
curriculum
• Includes
– Annual return to good
organisations
– Employment for
graduates directly and
indirectly
– Postgrad and postdoc
opportunities
http://iase-web.org/documents/SERJ/SERJ16(1)_Carter.pdf
22. Impact and evaluation – to date - students
• Collected via reflective
pieces
• Interviews
• On Facebook (through
closed group)
• On LinkedIn
• Personal connections
through Q-Step alumni
• Short films
23. Publications and presentations
“Work placements,
internships and applied
research” Carter, Sage
pub (forthcoming)
Statistical literacy
conferences, including
public understanding of
statistics
http://iase-web.org/documents/SERJ/SERJ16(1)_Carter.pdf
27. • … the data skill set is ever-changing, not least as more social
data and big data become available. Methods teaching in
social science courses, in the UK, is fairly traditional, built
mostly around the classic secondary analysis of survey
microdata using licenced software like SPSS.
• What we have found is that for many (especially smaller)
organisations, these packages may not be available, with
much more use made of tools like Excel, Google forms and in
some case open-source tools like R. This came to light when
we consulted with host internship organisations, when we
asked for key skills and software tools they would look for.
They unanimously asked for Excel, with a lower number
requesting SPSS. However, whilst students may have
experience of Excel, we were not previously teaching this in
any formal way.
Impact and evaluation – to date - workplace
28. Ongoing research
• Research what employers want in a graduate
employee – research assistant currently
surveying our host organisations
• Compare against an audit of skills taught (as
described in curriculum documentation)
29.
30. Postgraduate training
Social Research Methods and Statistics (SRMS) –
one year Master’s programme
Taught by Social Statistics staff
Introduction to Quantitative Methods module
taught across other Master’s Programmes
PhD in Applied Social Research
31. New postgraduate training
https://datacdt.org
Data Analytics and Society – PhD with integrated taught MSc
Advanced methods include:
- Longitudinal Data Analysis, Structural Equation Modelling,
Multilevel Modelling, Advanced Survey Methods
- Foundations of Machine Learning, Modelling Data on the Web, Data
Engineering,
• Data Analytics and Society Work Placement : A portfolio to be
developed in collaboration with a non-academic partner.
• Funds to travel and do work placement overseas
• Contact person is Prof Mark Elliot (mark.elliot@manchester.ac.uk)
32. Postdoc opportunities
• Dr Patricio
Troncoso
• PhD in Social
Statistics
• 6-month
secondment
with
Department
for Education
33. Summing up
• Who pays? An undergraduate costs approx.
£2,800 for 8 weeks
• Q-Step provides a pipeline to quantitatively
trained social researchers, and opportunities for
researchers
• Manchester has strong methods across the social
sciences, quants, quali, mixed
• Work-placed learning is becoming more centre-
stage
• Cathie Marsh Institute open to international
research collaboration
34. Contact details
• T: @JackieCarter
• E: jackie.carter@manchester.ac.uk
• S: dr_jackiecarter
• Initiatives I haven’t mentioned:
– Methods@Manchester
– CMI Short Courses
– Mitchell Centre for SNA and Morgan Centre for
Research into Everyday Lives
– National Centre for Research Methods (International
Visitor Exchange Scheme)
