Chevron Left
Back to Quantitative Methods

Learner Reviews & Feedback for Quantitative Methods by University of Amsterdam

4.7
stars
2,220 ratings

About the Course

Discover the principles of solid scientific methods in the behavioral and social sciences. Join us and learn to separate sloppy science from solid research! This course will cover the fundamental principles of science, some history and philosophy of science, research designs, measurement, sampling and ethics. The course is comparable to a university level introductory course on quantitative research methods in the social sciences, but has a strong focus on research integrity. We will use examples from sociology, political sciences, educational sciences, communication sciences and psychology....

Top reviews

LG

Jan 4, 2018

This course was excellent in all aspects, including the interesting and extensive material, as well as Dr. Annemarie Zand Scholten's brilliant lectures that help students digest and enjoy the content.

GM

Nov 15, 2020

Excellent course! Well narrated, even entertaining, VERY well structured, with supporting material, and a great mix of theory and examples or discussions. Perhaps the best MOOC I've ever encountered.

Filter by:

626 - 650 of 769 Reviews for Quantitative Methods

By S S S V

Sep 1, 2020

good

By Md. S R

Aug 21, 2020

Best

By Cui L

Jun 30, 2020

good

By Cao Z

May 31, 2020

good

By Vipin K

Apr 28, 2021

ok

By SAIMA S

Dec 20, 2022

i

By Martin O C J

Mar 11, 2016

I

By Gloria C

Aug 2, 2023

Great content and I thought the lecturer delivered it very professionally with easy to understand analogies that helped me to remember some of the concepts. Understandably, this is an introductory course and it would benefit the learner to do some Googling on certain ideas mentioned on the course to get a better understanding. The illustrations were helpful with visualising and summarising most of the time but on a few rare occasions, they didn't match up 100% and was a little confusing for me. As this was my first Coursera course, I have only just found out that there is no way to interact with my peers or the course team members directly, I mean there is no direct messaging system. Looking at the (lack of) activity in the forums, I was worried that the course might be "dead" but it seems like there are enough active participants to grade my assignments and allow me to successfully complete the course. One final note: I spent well over 35 hours to complete Quantitative methods (estimated time to completion by Coursera/University of Amsterdam was 29 hours).

By Hongming H

May 12, 2020

It is a very useful course, as an international student who is currently studying in the Netherland, I have to say, this course is a very dutch way. we have to do group work with our classmates, and we can have a discussion with other people.

In addition, those courses are not very long, they are very short videos and everyone can use several minutes to take those courses. This course aims to lay the foundation for conducting first-class qualitative and quantitative research and embed it in an effective and feasible mixed-method research design, thereby laying a solid foundation. At the end of this course, students will have a good understanding of the most important principles and practices of social science research. At the end of the course, he will also be able to improve his knowledge and skills independently, so as to pursue his substantive research interests without methodological obstacles. The course first introduces and discusses the most important qualitative methods for all students in the social sciences and behavioural sciences.

By MK Q

Aug 8, 2020

The content provided is of excellent quality, and videos are well explained. I only put 3 stars for 2 reasons. The first one, is that the “peer-reviewing” idea is not a good idea without language requirements to enrol in this course: at least half of the assignments I peer-reviewed were filled with vocabulary and grammar mistakes make it really hard the understand. In many cases as well, the assignments are so filled with mistakes that it is just impossible to understand. I therefore wonder, how such low English skills can permit some of us to read carefully and understand the texts used for the assignments.

The second point, is that in my opinion, the content remains very general. For instance a deeper analysis of each research designs would have been nice.

The course remains however extremely useful for whoever is interested in quantitative reasoning. I would recommend to pair this knowledge with that of books on each topic discussed.

By Stephan R

Aug 7, 2020

The course covers a lot of topics, which all together provide a good introduction into research. it is well-structured and covers even aspects of the current movement towards open science. I enjoyed the way the course instructor, Annemarie Zand Scholten, guides you through the course. The slides are well-made and the assignments really support applying the knowledge gained. Nonetheless, the instructions in the assignments need some attention as they sometimes contain contradictory information about what is asked. Furthermore, a number of the items in the quizzes are at least technically questionable; so one has to guess or assume what was probably intended to ask. Most disappointing: I never had so many cases of plagiarism by other participants. Still, I will recommend this course to my students.

By Sara E M

Feb 15, 2016

I really enjoyed this course overall (and it was somewhat easy for me because I have some background in this already), but there were some technical issues especially regarding accessing assignments. It would be nice if there was a more robust group of volunteer tutors/teaching assistants or something to answer questions or deal with these technical issues, especially the final exam not working for a while for me and some other people. But, I enjoyed the illustrations (drawings) and cute examples, and also the lecturer did a pretty good job on camera. I would probably give this course a 4.5 if possible, but I am hesitant to give it a full 5 points because of the technical issues. Anyway I would recommend the course to someone who wants a survey of quantitative methods to prepare for future study.

By Irene P

Jun 25, 2018

I had no grounding in quantitative research methods before doing this course, although I have an undergraduate humanities degree with some background in the philosophical foundations of the course (e.g. epistemology, ontology). I found that the course was pitched at a good level for me. It gave a clear, thorough overview of quantitative research. I enjoyed the simplicity of the videos and the appeal of the cartoons, but I also really appreciated the additional interviews with social scientists and the use of real academic articles in the assignments, as it allowed me a more nuanced understanding and application of the concepts. (Useful to note: I took notes as I watched the lectures, and I found it took a lot longer than the recommended time, because the lectures are very content-dense.)

By Deleted A

Mar 7, 2021

The content is well structured and well-presented. And the course is well organized to keep the learner on track and motivated. If there is scope to improve for the next iteration, I might suggest including a more complicated example after the lectures and the unit assignment to show, for example, how the concepts of research validity might apply to a longer, more realistic case study. I often found that there was a big jump between the lectures and test to the homework assignments. This may reflect a flaw in the "sequence and reinforcement" of the learning design, but it would be easily addressed by including an optional case study to review. I did not find the supplemental interviews as relevant to my needs as a non-academic. But overall, thanks!

By Jennifer B

Jan 28, 2020

I thought the content, progress quiz questions, and other materials were very helpful. I'm glad I took this course, even if you know some of the material it's great for reinforcement and introducing other topics. I do agree with others though that the assignments are a bit hard to tackle. I work in UX Research, so it was refreshing an a nice challenge to review scientific papers, however I would have liked more variation in the types of assignments and -many- of my peers in the group didn't seem to understand the instructions or maybe didn't put in the effort. I think peer review is valuable, but the course seemed to rely on this activity and the articles a lot, which was a stumbling block. That being said, I would recommend this course.

By Rachel S

Apr 18, 2018

I very much liked the content of the course, the pace was nicely pitched, and the videos really well done. I also liked that I could print the script for each module, that made it a lot easier to revise. And I also found the practice exam really useful where the course convener explained the answers in separate videos.

I think it would be really helpful if similar videos could exist for each of the written assignments. The feedback we receive from peers is usually limited to a couple of words (e.g. 'well done') and does not really help you assess how well you did. Having someone who teaches the course provide sample answers or discussion videos for each written assignment would add a lot of value and aid students' learning.

By Tiago D

Feb 29, 2016

Good Course. It should be complemented with reading of Neuman, Quantitative and Qualitative Methods in Social Science, which gives a far better overview of the contents of week 1 and 2 (insights into the scientific method). Nevertheless the rest of the weeks are very good and should provide a great framework of Quantitative methods for a undergraduate student, who can then complement this framework with some detailed additional readings, if it is of his liking. All in all, I really ended my fisrt college semester with an excellent knowledge in quantitative methods, for which I have to thank, in part to Miss Scholten for this wonderful course.

By Emilia G

Jun 27, 2022

Course content was excellent, really enjoyed the detailled explanations, the illustrations, and the simple, consistent examples which were built upon as the concepts became more complex. Some of the examples were also amusing and interesting which further engaged me with the content.

The only issues I found were with the practice and final exams. The visual formatting of the final exams was skewed - it looked like the questions had been copied and paste from a different file format, creating erroneous spacing and extra lines. Additionally, some of the wording of the questions was ambiguous and unclear.

By Yasar M

Oct 12, 2018

Excellent course. It provides beginners with the working knowledge on how to conduct quantitative research. However, the high passing criteria on weekly quizzes and final exam was frustrating at times. I suggest to ask the participants to develop a product by applying the concepts they have learnt during each week and evaluate (and pass) participants on the basis of this product. Moreover, I missed expert feedback. Although peer evaluation and feedback is very good but it should be augmented by expert feedback (ideally someone from the course staff should also give feedback).

By Marie R

Oct 18, 2016

I really felt this course was well presented and easily accessed for working learners. If you wish to build your skills in this area, this course is a good way to do it. My only hesitation regarding this course pertains to the time and energy spent on historical or largely theoretical constructs, such as what Plato thought or did not think about the nature of reality. To me, this should be an applied learning course given its nature and spending time and energy on this seems an academic exercise of little importance to the ability to understand research.

By Rema M

Apr 17, 2021

I really enjoyed this course. It featured videos with periodic knowledge checks, quizzes and writing assignments. My favorite part of the course were the writing assignments. They helped me to identify the concepts that I did not fully understand. My only complaint was that the peer-review feedback was not as robust as I would like. Most students just said good job and nothing more; but I did appreciate that a few people were willing to give me real, critical feedback. It helped me to see where I did not fully understand some of the concepts.

By Gavin Y

Dec 23, 2019

I enjoyed this course and it was very useful to me. My only gripe is that I received no feedback from qualified people. Yes, the tests were feedback but I received no such feedback on the writing assignments. How could I know if my ideas were right or not? You might supply an example essay written by a qualified researcher or choose an exemplary one from the students to showcase. This course was a bit challenging and it was better than I expected. I would strongly consider taking another course through this university. Thank you.

By Sebbane E

Jan 12, 2017

Very good and quality training : videos and material are in a very good quality. Assignments make well practice the acquired knowledge and the final exam reviews all lectures in a very practical way that allowed me to make the infinite connections until the end.

The only negatively appreciated aspect is the issue to be graded when you submit your assignment few days later. Also, there is no real mentor from the university. These are very critical points that should really exist in a paid online course.

By Sara G

Apr 28, 2020

Great course! It introduces a lot of concepts necessary for social research and it invites the student to actually apply them to a critical read of published papers. It also sets the philosophical basis for different approaches in Science, which are usually overlooked in this kind of courses.

It can be quite technical if you are coming from an unrelated field, so I would strongly recommend but only if you are actually interested in the topic and in engaging with it.

By Reem A

Apr 11, 2022

I really enjoyed the course and the assignments. Only two things frustrated me - grading other students' assignments because it was embedded into a box that made them difficult to read. This may be an issue with the Coursera website. But in other classes assignments did not have that "look". The other thing is - I finished the entire course - but it keeps saying 99% - which isn't allowing me to obtain my course certificate. That is frustrating for me.