Avis et commentaires pour d'étudiants pour Quantitative Methods par Université d'Amsterdam

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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!

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A very interesting course - I learned a lot. I thought it was a shame that my elective assignment in week 6 was not marked - perhaps if you're offering extra assignments, it might be worth having mentors checking and grading them. Apart from that, the video lectures are informative and enjoyable, as are the interviews, and there is a nice mix of assignments with practical and theoretical applications.

This course id deceptively simple. you think you know the meaning of those terms like reliability and validity and other terms but when you do this course you realize how nuanced those terms are. To be honest I expected a little more fro the course but I also learnt a lot. What I rally liked were the interviews.They ere informative and first hand information.

This is an excellent introduction to quantitative social research methods. It has been very helpful for understanding how to design a research study and how to evaluate how effective a research design is. Thank you. The only flaw is the evaluative assignments. I don't think marking each others assignments is a reliable way of assessing our learning.

The course was thorough, and introduced the concepts clearly and concisely. My only quibble is that its geared toward the experimental sciences and so the exams and assignments emphasized concepts and research design issues that are less germane to other fields. I got a bit impatient with that towards the end. Otherwise, fantastic.

The lectures are pretty good from a theoretical point of view as it breaks down the finer details in understanding the concepts pretty well. Only thing is I wish the Professor had used slightly more practical or real world experiments to explain the concepts instead of examples like rating mother-in-laws and love towards cats etc.

This course has been really useful to become familiar with basic quantitative research concepts. The explanations are clear, the quizzes and exams address the topics from the lessons accurately and the community is engaged with the discussion of the topics. The main weakness is the lack of peer effort when reviewing assignments.

Very good course, the videos were entertaining and the tasks forced me to use the newly acquired knowledge in practice. Still, I guess we all would benefit from a longer project completed part by part, for example, a study using some database. In this way, it would bring even more benefits.

The video lectures, test and assignments are of good quality. If found the material challenging and learned a lot. However I do feel that the peer grading system is flawed. There are many accounts of plagiarism in the submissions by the participants and few take grading you work seriously.