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ESRC/SFC Scoping Study Into Quantitative Methods Capacity Building in Scotland

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ESRC/SFC Scoping Study Into Quantitative Methods Capacity Building in Scotland ESRC/SFC Scoping Study into Quantitative Methods Capacity Building in Scotland Final Report May 2008 Susan McVie, University of Edinburgh Anthony P.M. Coxon, University of Edinburgh Philip Hawkins, Sigma Essex Research & Consultancy Jackie Palmer, University of Edinburgh Robin Rice, University of Edinburgh Acknowledgements This scoping study was funded jointly by the Economic and Social Research Council and the Scottish Funding Council. The research was carried out in early 2007 by a multi-disciplinary team based at the University of Edinburgh, led by Susan McVie of the School of Law. The other co-applicants were Professor Anthony Coxon, Honorary Professorial Fellow in the School of Social & Political Studies; Philip Hawkins, Co-Director of Sigma Essex Research & Consultancy; Jackie Palmer, Data Manager in the School of Law; and Robin Rice, Data Librarian in the University of Edinburgh Data Library. The study team would like to thank all those who participated in this research study. These include Heads of Departments and staff involved in teaching, research, computing and library services within the Scottish Higher Educational Institutions; senior executives from the Scottish Government; Directors from a range of social research organisations based in Scotland; and senior members of the Scottish voluntary sector. Thanks are also due to the academics from the Scottish social science research community who generously gave of their time and ideas in preparing this research; and to the Welsh scoping study team led by Professor Laurence Moore who shared their research materials and their draft report (see Lynch et al 2007). 1 Executive Summary • There has been widespread concern about a UK-wide deficit in quantitative skills amongst social scientists since the 1960s, especially in relation to the rapid pace of change within the industry and the lack of adequately trained computing scientists. • Despite experiencing a relatively industrious period in the late 1960s and 1970s, Scotland’s provision of quantitative methods within social science is now extremely patchy and as bad, if not worse, than that in the rest of the UK. • Scotland has a similar demographic profile to the rest of the UK in terms of social sciences; but Scottish Higher Educational Institutions (HEI) are under-represented in other respects (e.g. representation at the Essex Summer School). • In Scotland, disciplines such as Economics, Accountancy, Business Studies and Psychology, which already have a quantitative reputation, have better resources for assessment, training and improvement of mathematical, statistical and general quantitative skills of their graduate students than other disciplines. • Undergraduate courses are mainly focused around generic rather than specialised quantitative methods teaching, although there is more specialist provision at postgraduate level, but this again is centred around the ‘usual’ disciplines. • Most teaching and research involves fairly general methods and statistical techniques, although there are a few people experienced in more ‘advanced’ methods. There is a widespread need for continuing professional development training in Scotland across all sectors, mainly at the more advanced level. • There are a few, small-scale centres of expertise in Scotland, but most quantitative researchers are spread across a range of institutions and disciplines. There are no large-scale networks or centres, and this is viewed as key to building capacity. • There are three general barriers to developing quantitative methods capacity in Scotland. In order of importance, these are ‘antipathy’ (reluctance by students, staff and HEI colleagues to engage with quantitative methods); ‘accessibility’ (availability of/time for training); and ‘enabling’ (lack of funding, collaborative opportunities and data access). • Scotland is a relatively ‘data rich’ country, with a proliferation in recent years of Government funded surveys. However, self-reported usage of Scottish datasets is low and there is a general failure to make the most of available data in Scotland. • Computing and library support services are not well tuned to the needs of quantitative capacity building. Basic levels of support, such as finding resources on the web and offering assistance to access these, are provided; however, students get little extensive user support or instruction in use of datasets and staff do not get support for statistical consultancy or teaching data analysis skills in computer labs. Greater communication and collaboration between support and research staff is needed. • There is support in Scotland for a long-term, strategic approach to building capacity and there are good reasons for developing a specifically Scottish strategy. • A national strategy must include a variety of activities at a range of different levels, such as: boosting numeracy in secondary schools; better engagement with both undergraduate and graduate students; strengthening links between academia and potential employers; more training through continuing professional development; and mentoring for early career researchers. 2 • Boosting capacity will require cultural and structural changes within many institutions and disciplinary areas. Universities and funding bodies must provide strategic investment in order to build a strong infrastructure capable of supporting a critical mass of quantitative trained researchers in Scotland. • The recommendations from this study include creating a Scottish Centre for Social Science Research Methods and establishing a Scottish Summer School. 3 Contents Page 1. Introduction 5 2. Aims and methods 11 3. Results from the surveys: - Heads of Departments survey 13 - Teaching and research staff survey 19 - Library and computing staff survey 31 4. Findings from the interviews 35 5. Conclusions and recommendations 43 6. Appendices 51 7. Bibliography 63 4 1. Introduction This report presents the findings from a scoping study funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) into the capacity building needs of quantitative methods in Scotland. The research was commissioned as part of a wider review of the need to strengthen the research infrastructure and expand quantitative research capacity in the UK. The study involved a range of sectors, including the Scottish Higher Educational Institutions (HEI), central government, private research organisations and the voluntary sector. It was carried out by a research team comprising representatives from the School of Law, the Data Library and the School of Social and Political Science within the University of Edinburgh and Sigma Essex Research & Consultancy. It is intended that the findings of this research be used by the ESRC and SFC in their strategic development activities and feed into a UK-wide review of capacity building needs in the use of quantitative methods in both teaching and research. This introduction sets out the historical and research context against which this review took place, focusing in particular on important developments in Scotland. It also presents some additional background information of relevance to the main aims of the study. Historical background This study was commissioned against a backdrop of longstanding and widespread concern about a UK-wide deficit in quantitative skills amongst social scientists. Problems arising from a skills capital deficit were first identified as early as the late 1960s. During this time, there was rapid, extensive and paradigmatic development in computing and research methods, particularly within the US. Hanan Selvin at UC Berkeley was commissioned by its Survey Research Centre to assess the impact of computers on survey analysis. He argued that computers made it possible to deal with the inherently multi-variable and complex causal models needed in the social sciences and that this would enable a methodological revolution. At the same time, Chicago was developing computer software that subsequently became SPSS and Harvard was developing powerful models, methods and software in social networks and mathematical sociology and in computer-assisted text and content analysis. Around the same time, social scientists at Ann Arbor, University of Michigan, were at the forefront in developing ordinal equivalents of multivariate methods and other models. Concerns were raised about the rapid pace of change within the industry and the lack of adequately trained computing scientists, which prompted the ESRC and other UK- based professional organisations to launch a range of initiatives aimed at drawing more students into the field. The US developments had a particular impact on events in Scotland in the late 1960s and 70s, however. The Edinburgh Regional Computing Centre and its constituent Program Library Unit were based on IBM machines (rare at the time in UK due to government home procurement policy), which made it possible to introduce innovative US software such as SPSS (which was subsequently promulgated by Edinburgh to the rest of the UK). It also facilitated the export and worldwide distribution of new quantitative social science models and programs developed in Scotland (especially at Edinburgh, Strathclyde and St Andrews Universities in clustering, econometrics, psychometrics, content analysis and Geographic Information Systems). Quantitative social scientists in Scottish 5 Universities were swift to develop communication networks and publications (such as the Quantitative Sociology Newsletter) which circulated research
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