This course offers the applied part to the lecture “Introduction to Empirical Social Research”. The course is designed to assist students in deepening their knowledge and skills acquired in the lecture.

In this course, students will learn the basic logic of research designs and discuss a selection of statistical and causal analysis of real world phenomena frequently used in empirical social research. We will concentrate on 'clever research designs'. The course thus focuses on the following interrelated issues:

the nature of scientific uncertainty, the logic of available research designs, the strengths and weakness of these research designs, the limits to knowledge that scientific research provides.

Attendance in this course is compulsory in line with standard rules for absence in practice courses (VUE). More detailed information on absenteeism will be explained in the first unit.

Students are required to attend the first constitutive session of the seminar.

Overall course performance will be evaluated based on two components:

- Several brief written assignments such as reflection tasks or readings comprehensions (60 %), and

- A written essay at the end of the semester (40 %).

Grading / Notenschlüssel:

0-50%: Insufficient; 50.1-62.5% Sufficient; 62.6-75% Satisfactory; 75.1-87.5% Good; 87.6-100% Excellent

In order to pass the course, students need to receive a positive evaluation (i.e. more than half of the points) on each of