From the very first week, I found myself in some kind of rabbit hole, way far from my zone of comfort, learning different historical ontological and epistemological concepts. Wondering, why should I know the difference between Descartes and Bacon, but being completely amused, I continued learning about the history of scientific methods.Surprisingly, it indeed helped with further cases, where we learned about different kinds of fraud and sloppy science and ways of protecting by using better research designs. As a person with a technical background, I got used to the world, where the ability to perform a random sampling is something given and I had no idea how hard it could be to design a real research study.So, I really enjoyed this course and thankful for an opportunity to take a look into the social sciences realm and researchers' day-to-day problems.

Hello to the officials and all the esteemed members of the quantitative and coursera team,

I'm undaubtedly glad to know that i've passed successfully this useful and informative course. First of all, i thank to all venerable officials who accepted and approved my application. Then, i would like to express my gratitude to lofty and knowledgable professor, Annemarie Zand Scholten, for her vast knowledge, attractive teaching and for her well-versed mastery in this field. The contents of videos and Texs have been perfectly categorized in such a way that a student conveniently progresses and easily learns from begnning to end, from bottom to top. This course ist the most comprehensive, cohesive, didactic and educatinal i've ever seen. I believe coursera strongly play a role to expand the knowledge in reaearch field around the world.

Best

Dawlat Amiri

I really learned a lot in this course. It's well organized, and the instructor, Prof. Annemarie Zand Scholten, explains the concepts clearly and in an enjoyable, fun way. I would definitely recommend this course for anyone who wants to brush up on their research methods knowledge, or if they plan to study this topic as a beginner.

I have only two criticisms, and they are both regarding the written material (quizzes; transcripts of the lecture videos; and prompts and items in the assignments, the practice tests, and even in the final test): (1) The material keeps referring to 2014 as 'last year' or something similar. It should be updated so that it mentions just the year, without saying it was 'last year'. (2) There are lots of typos in the above-mentioned material as well, which sometimes causes confusion as to the intended meaning.

Well, i am completely satisfied from this course. As my field is Social Sciences it was my first contact and experience this lesson for the huge range in Methodology and Statistics. Although it needed to devote a lot of time in order to meet the deadlines, to sumbit quiz and assigments, i learned a lot. Material, videos, lectures and the ability of the professor to transmit all the nessesary knowledge it was a huge, useful advantage. Do not forget that lessons from distance are much more difficult to study and succeed than attending in universities. I will reccomend this lesson to everyone. Congratulations about organisation, material. One little fragment that it was negative i claim that i completed everything before the date that the course finishes and i am waiting the grades to be reviwed in order to receive my certification.

What can I say? Although it was a tough course but sometimes things were tough, it felt so incredibly fruitful each week. I think the main reason was because even though there were so many quizzes and the assignments which required so much time, they were carefully crafted in a way which helped build my abilities in a progressive manner. There was definitely a close alignment between instruction (video) and the assessments (quizzes/exams). You'll never be asked questions you weren't prepared to answer because of the aforesaid alignment.

As I also work in a department which dabbles in educational research, I found the concepts thought in this course directly applicable to what's done in practice. Because the concepts were communicated so clearly, I could readily see examples of them in my everyday work!

Really enriching course material and the method of explaining by Annemarie Zand Scholten. It gave me a good overview of the quantitative approach to contrast it with the qualitative approach i have been following at my workplace. The course material is very comprehensive and also the transcripts provided for each module. The detailed word to word transcripts really help to revise material while doing assignments and preparing for exams. The assignments really makes one think and helps to digest the course material in the process. The concepts and style of illustrations used in the video are also extremely helpful to understand the content heavy topic. The bonus video material provide the completeness due to the applied examples discussed in them.

Overall a very satisfying learning experience! Great!

I learned a great deal from this course - the professor is clear, well organized, and thorough. I would have appreciated an additional session early on about how to review a research article--especially looking at many of the elements that were requested in the assignments--to help students feel more prepared to actually perform the assignments. Being asked to review research articles toward the beginning of the course (lesson 3) felt a bit like being thrown into the deep end before learning to swim. Personally, I instantly felt "out of my depth" and seriously questioned whether I "belonged" in the course or should drop out. But I am glad that I did continue, and hope that others will too, as it is a well-taught, valuable course. Thank you for presenting it.

I like this course so much! I am a law student and I think it is not enough for law student to only learn social science through reading laws, textbooks and writting essays. I think law students should learn how to conduct researches themselves and review researches of others. It is important because in that way, we have more possibilities to come up with more reliable hypothesises and hopefully improve the legal system (e.g., prevent crime). Really thank Pro. Annemarie Zand Scholten and UvA. The animations and transcripts of the course are just amazing.

我太喜欢这门课了！我是一个法学生，我觉得想要真正学好法律这门社会科学，仅仅是读法条、看课本、写论文，是不够的。我觉得，法学生还要学习如何自己进行（社会）研究，同时学会如何检验他人的研究。这挺重要的，因为通过这种方式，我们才能可能提出更可靠的假说，去改善我们的法律制度（例如，预防犯罪）。 非常感谢Annemarie Zand Scholten教授和阿姆斯特丹大学。这门课的动画和逐字稿真的做得非常棒。墙裂安利。

I learned a lot more than I expected! There were great illustrations and the concepts were complex but the cat pictures made it simple to understand. The PDF notes helped me a lot as well in reviewing before assignments and quizzes. Interviews with professionals in research at the end of the week were cool and helped me see how a career in research might look. The Dutch accent is also nice to listen to from the perspective of a Canadian or at least personally. The only down side was that peer reviews were often marked with single words like “ok” “good” “great” and did not provide the kind of opportunity to learn that I think they were supposed to. Indeed, don’t count on learning much from the peer reviews of your assignments.

This course was very well taught - supplemented with extra videos that were extremely helpful. I did find the assignments challenging, but this is how to learn! The exams were also very challenging, and I feel as though this must parallel being in a university classroom, which is what MOOCs aim to do. In a world where science is under threat, this course is a refreshing antidote with very solid foundational material wonderfully presented. I feel very lucky to have taken this course, and to have learned the concepts taught within. Thank you very much Dr. Zand Scholten - while challenged and "under the gun" at times, I really appreciate the rigor of your course, and look forward to others in the series.

Really solid course on the foundations of quantitative methods for social and behavioral sciences. If you aim to learn the basics or improve your theoretical, methodological, and analytical understanding of quantitative research methods, you should definitely enroll in this course. However, it does not cover statistics and other technical skills required to produce research using quantitative data. That is because this is the first course of the specialization in Methods and Statistics in Social Sciences offered by the UvA, so by following the other courses included in the specialization you may acquire such knowledge and skills.

Found Annemarie Zand Scholten's presentation outstanding. The lean combination of simple supplemental illustrations with clear, condensed live narration was perfect for learning, keeping cognitive and visual load to a minimum and using each 'channel' (listening, viewing) to best effect. In combination with the possibility to save notes and use full transcriptions, it offered a lot of ways to study and review. A small critical note: it would be nice to know the reason for wrong answers on the final exam (there was no screencast or explanation). That leaves a learner curious :) Now - on to the other four courses in the specialty!

Excellent course. The lectures were very clear and the quiz questions that were embedded in the videos supported my understanding of the materials. The same is true for the assignments, the quizzes as well as the peer graded assignments.

I also want to say that I really enjoyed the illustrations on the slides. They were not only funny and sweet but really helped making the material easier to understand.

The interviews at the end of every module were very interesting and provided further insight into the respective topics.

Thank you to the entire team! It is obvious that you put in a lot of work into producing this online course.

This course was on a topic I have never been exposed to and will be necessary for ongoing research work. I was both amazed and gratified by the way that the University of Amsterdam and Professor Annemarie Zand Scholten conducted the course and imparted knowledge. The difficulty of the material for me was in the language and the newness of the content that was made quite easy to follow. The quizzes, assignments and tests were at the right level and built to a crescendo. Really can't say enough good things but will say that it was everything I needed and delivered with the highest professionalism than I had expected. Kudos!

Excellent organisation of the course! The content is also well thought and presented. i personally clarified many vague questions related to variables, measurements and research ethics. I did have the quantitative methods course at the university, in any case some blank spots were left, so this course was helpful. It is a useful course for revising, but I do not know how total beginners feel about it. If I were a beginner I would have some difficulties probably. It could relate to my personal "slowness" to grasp material like this.

Thank you Annemarie! I really like your lecturing/teaching style.

This was my first MOOC experience and only my second online class experience. I was entering with a little bit of reservation; however, I was extremely impressed and pleased both by the professor, course, and overall specialization in general by the University of Amsterdam. All-in-all, I strongly believe the dedicated work by Dr. Annemarie Zand Scholten, the course creator and professor, along with the whole team did a superb job. I certainly recommend it to anyone interested in research methods, statistics, or better preparing for graduate-level work and research in general.

A lot I was previously exposed to. A lot I learned intrinsically through school and univeristy. And even more background and deep, embedded knowledge than I expected.. of which I knew nothing about!

The only note I have is that I had to rush through this course because I still have to do course 2 in order to be accepted into a Master in Vrije University, so I couldn't soak in everything I wanted. However, I was able to write most of it down and will refer to it forever, in hopes of retaining this precious knowledge!

A huge, wholesome thank you to whole team!

I learned much more in this course than other courses about quantitative methods. It is clear and useful and inspiring. The quizzes are very good, because they are not only about konwledge,but also about whether you can apply the knowledge. And the interviews are very good too, which give us more information in different subjiects, or from different perspectives. But I feel the speaker's speaking speed is a little fast, and I hope that there will be exercise or quizzes in which we are given situation,and asked to come up with RQ, methods, analysis, etc.

This is an excellent course that I widely recommed, it is very well explained by the instructors, all the assignments really help you to understand the knowledge and apply it in practical cases. Reviewing your fellow learners gives you a opportunity to be critical and strengthen your knowledge. Also you have bonus videos at the end of eac module with academic experts in the subject. And I also want to say that the instructor explanations are enriched with very nice illustrations and diagrams that help you a better understanding!

Of all the lectures i have come across, (along with social psychology course of Wesleyan University), this one stands out, the profound depth and the sheer amount of information packaged, in simple language without simplifying, it's one of the best course i have come across, the instructor is very eloquent and articulate, its stimulating and interesting, i can't ask for more, thank you.

P.S. though i listen to all the lectures, making notes - as i'm preparing for my psychology research methodology exam-, i'm a non-active participant.

This course is excellent! I found the content of very high quality, the lecture videos are very clear and easy to understand. What I find remarkable however, is the quality of the exams and assignments! The staff have put in a lot of effort in creating questions and assignments which really test your understanding and knowledge with a clever marking system which always works out to give you a fair mark even when the assignments are peer reviewed. Well done to Anne-Marie and the other staff who put together this course :)

I discovered this course by chance after having done UvAs excellent statistics courses, in which I enrolled for refreshing my memory. Being a physicist by education (got my Master degree in the 1990s) many concepts of this course were familiar but new at the same time. The material presented is probably mandatory for students of the social sciences but not less relevant for any practitioner with a math/engineering/natural sciences background. Thank you very much for keeping me busy on all those wonderful evenings!

This is a course that is well thought out, informative, descriptive, and enjoyable! I was excited to start each new week of Quantitative Methods, and to learn more about research methods! I definitely recommend this course to anyone who is interested in research, and this will help strengthen your basics in quantitative methods. I commend Prof. Annemarie Zand Scholten, and the rest of the team from UAmsterdam for bringing a wonderful course to the Coursera platform! I can't wait to start & finish the rest!

This was a clearly structured and clearly presented course. The lecturer, the explanations and the examples used also well supported the course content. I would highly recommend this course to those new to the subject. For some constructive criticism, I noted that some of the questions in the tests in particular were somewhat strangely worded which sometimes made me question what exactly you were trying to get at. I'd suggest simpler and more precise wording to avoid that. All round, great course though.

My deepest Gratitudes to Assistant Professor

Annemarie Zand Scholten.

for her amazing work ( well-prepared lectures with lot's of assignments to solve in addition extra reading links and bonus videos are very helpful and very beneficial.

To sum up, the course is a great experience if anyone is interested in obtaining and gaining useful information and knowledge about Social Sciences further, Quantitative Methods.

Finally, I am so excited to finish the entire track one course done 4 to go.