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Applied Quantitative Methods for Non-quantitative Doctoral Researchers in Organization and Management Studies

Faculty
Dr., Postdoc Wencke Gwozdz and Ph.D., Associate Professor Charles T. Tackney, Department of Intercultural Communication and Management
Course Coordinator
Dr., Post Doc Wencke Gwozdz
Prerequisite/progression of the course
Doctoral students face a range of challenges concerning empirical methods, regardless of the research issue taken up. This course intends to strengthen their research competence through improving their reflective understanding of quantitative methods and the varied potential statistical analysis offers.
As a course pre-requisite, we would first assess the perceived quantitative methods skills and needs of doctoral students that intend to participate in the course. Thus, students would complete a survey to learn more about their particular research interests and perceived skilling needs, and adjust the specific quantitative methods content of the course to ensure instruction and practical application of appropriate quantitative research methods.
Aim of the course
In light of the pre-course assessment described in the Pre-requisite section (above), we propose to introduce and train students in the targeted statistical tools within a pedagogic context of a general empirical method that recognizes the complementarity between qualitative and quantitative methods. So that students will be better prepared for the particular challenges they immediately face as well as any future methods issue that may arise in the course of a post-doctoral career that involves organizational and management research.
Course content, structure and teaching
An Overview of the Place of Quantitative Studies in General Empirical Method:
    • History, Culture, and Science
    • Classical and Statistical Heuristic Structures
    • The Complementarity of Heuristic Structures and Insight
Statistical Procedures of Interest (Content will vary to a degree, depending on pre-course student survey data).
    • A Session of Review and/or Remediation: Statistics as description, Statistics for inference, how these differ: the normal distribution and the Central Limit Theorum.
    • Introduction of SPSS (enter data, clean data, writing procedures)
    • Estimation and explanation of statistical models (t-test, ANOVA, regression analyses, factor analysis, cluster analysis, multi-dimensional scaling)
    • Interpretation of results
Class discussions and/or individual sessions on the application of quantitative methods to individual research questions
Learning Objectives
At the end of the course, doctoral students should be able to:
  1. Know and understand the historical and cultural contexts within which contemporary research methods function.
  2. Specify the complementarities of qualitative and qualitative research within the general empirical method.
  3. Know the quantitative approaches appropriate to their specific research interests.
  4. Use statistical packages needed for their doctoral research needs.
  5. Evidence a nuanced ability to consider empirical research questions in organizational and management studies, so they may better understand empirical literate and read it critically, in order to suggest appropriate quantitative methods to address research questions.
Teaching methods
Lecture, discussions, and PC lab practicum workshops.
Morning lecture and discussion sessions will be followed by afternoon PC lab and/or group work. C. Tackney will provide the initial lecture on General Empirical Method. Then he and W. Gwozdz will work together to present specific statistics sessions in the afternoon. The intended course runs three days, combining morning and afternoon sessions.
Course literature
A Compendium:
Lonergan, Bernard J.F. (2005). Preface, pp. 3-9, Chapter 1, Elements, pp. 27- 31, and pp. 126-139 on the complementarity of classical and statistical heuristic structures.
Insight: a Study of Human Understanding. Volume 3 of the Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan, (Frederik E. Crowe and Robert M. Doran, Eds.). Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Other readings as suggested by the doctoral student skills and interests assessment survey.
Recommended literature
Field, A. (2005), “Discovering Statistics Using SPSS,” Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 2nd Edition.
Weiers, R. (2008), “Introduction to Business Statistics,” Mason, OH: Thomson Higher Education, 6th Edition.
Enrolment
Please send your application to Maja Dueholm ( md.ikl@cbs.dk) before 12 April 2010

Sidst opdateret af Majbritt Vendelbo 18.03.2010