Making Sense of Criminological Data
An introduction to data analysis for criminologists (and crime analysts) using Excel
Welcome to the GitHub repo for Making Sense of Criminological Data
This is the GitHub page built by Reka Solymosi. It contains the lab materials for an introduction to data analysis course designed for 2nd year undergraduates on the BA Criminology programme at the University of Manchester. It makes use of Excel, as we have identified a gap in training students to use Excel, despite it being a primary tool for data analysis (whether we like it or not) in many public and private sector organisations. As many students take Q-step internships, this skill was identified as important. We teach students to use R in the second semester. A fantastic guide for crime analysis using R that has been created by Juanjo Medina is R for Criminologists, please do refer to that as well. Making Sense of Crim Data introduces students to data, and the concepts of descriptive data analysis. You can see the Syllabus in the materials below.
Disclaimer
Please beware that:
- This page is still under considerable development (use with caution).
- These pages are the content of the BA Criminology 2nd year course Making Sense of Criminological Data. They are meant to (very gently) introduce undergraduates to the concept of data analysis, and cover descriptive statsitics and the key concepts required to build an understanding of quantitative data analysis in crime research. It is followed in the second term by Modeling Criminological Data where students cover inferential statistics. The notes presented here are supported by compulsory reading and some lectures, and so do not provide a comprehensive description of these techniques and tools and how to use them.
- The handouts below use, among other data sets, dara from the UK data service such as the Crime Survey for England and Wales that is available under a Open Government Licence. This dataset is designed to be a learning resource and should not be used for research purposes or the production of summary statistics.
- We do not hold a degree on statistics. We are just applied social scientists that use quantitative methods. If you detect any errors, please let us know.
Materials for Making Sense of Criminological Data
- The Syllabus
- The Reading List
- Worksheets for lab sessions
- Homework tasks
- Data sets for the worksheets and homework tasks
- Lecture powerpoints
Complementary learning materials
Complementary learning materials
The labs are also followed by weekly tasks which the students have to complete. These tasks involve the unguided application of the techniques covered in the labs to new data sets. They are assessed by a timed Blackboard quiz with questions that students can only successfully answer within the time limit if they've completed the tasks before hand. Tasks for each week can be found here.
Support or Contact
Having trouble or questions? Have some feedback? Please email reka.solymosi@manchester.ac.uk. Please get in touch as well with any feedback. Your feedback, thus, is appreciated.
License
Making Sense of Criminological Data by Reka Solymosi is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://maczokni.github.io/MSCD/.