BSc Social Policy with Quantitative Research Methods

Year 3

(Award available for year: Bachelor of Science)

Learning outcomes

1. to demonstrate knowledge of:
- UK welfare institutions: origins and development; the social and demographic contexts in which they have operated; their contemporary activities and organisation, including the provision, financing and regulation of social security, education, health and social care, and housing;
- the UK policy process: framework; operation; finance;
- non-governmental sources of welfare (informal, voluntary and private sectors): impact; operation; interaction within mixed economies of welfare;
- main features of the interrelationship between social policies and differently placed communities, families and individuals;
- international and global contexts of social policy including the role and organisation of the European Union (QAA, Benchmark; 3.2).

2. to demonstrate an understanding of:
- interdisciplinary approaches to social policy topics and issues;
- the key concepts and theories of welfare, including human needs and social welfare; inequality, poverty and exclusion; citizenship, social difference and diversity; theories of the state and policy making; theories and methods of comparative analysis;
- how different social groups and individuals experience, respond to and contest social policies (QAA, Benchmark; 3.3)
- the ability to design and conduct a rigorous quantitative research project in Sociology and Social Policy;
- the ability to retrieve, manage and manipulate large and complex datasets
- the ability to produce accurate descriptions of data using numerical summaries and effective data visualisation
- the ability to use statistical models to answer substantive research questions;
- the ability to write sociological research reports based on quantitative data in a critical and reflective way.

Transferable (key) skills

the transferable/key/generic skills necessary for employment related to Social Policy;
- the exercise of initiative and personal responsibility;
- the deployment of decision making skills in complex and unpredictable situations;
- the communication of information, ideas, problems and solutions in a variety of ways;
- the ability to undertake appropriate further training of a professional or equivalent nature.
- Data search and preparation
- Quantitative data analysis and management skills;
- Quantitative data visualisation skills;
- Knowledge of quantitative research design and methodology;
- Writing skills in reporting quantitative research findings in a critical and reflective way.

Assessment

- demonstrating the ability to apply a broad range of aspects of Social Policy;
- work that draws on a wide variety of material in Social Policy;
- the ability to evaluate and criticise received opinion in Social Policy;
- evidence of an ability to conduct independent, in depth enquiry within Social Policy;
- Social Policy work that is typically both evaluative and creative.
- Report writing based on student-led data analysis
- Short data challenges involving specific techniques to consolidate week on week learning outcomes
- Documenting and annotating data analysis process