Understanding the major analytic and quantitative tools used by practitioners engaged in assessing or evaluating human service systems is an essential component of social policy practice. This course will emphasize quantitative program analysis, and students will be asked to analyze an area related to a particular social problem. Students will acquire beginning level skills in the use of a wide variety of analytic and quantitative tools, while gaining in-depth skill in a more limited number of tools and techniques. Competence in these skill areas will be gained by completing a major analysis of a social problem area relevant to social welfare policy.
The underlying theme of this course will be how to increase the rationality of the choice process when applied to complex and rapidly changing human service systems. In short, scientific analysis opposed to political analysis or advocacy is emphasized.
This section of SW 670 will be focused on the acquisition of concrete applicable skills in R, Tableau and QGIS. Course focus will be on learning the steps of data cleaning and preparation, conducting simple analyses, and creating maps and visualizations suitable for posting on the web, including in a report or other document. Data will be obtained from diverse and relevant sources. THERE WILL BE SOME LEARNING, AND APPLICATION OF, R CODE, AND CODING, THROUGHOUT THE SEMESTER.
Other SW670 Offerings
The course listings below are provided for reference only. These offerings may be subject to changed of cancellation.
No other course offerings found this term.