Prerequisites: No prerequisites, prior empirical or software background is not required for this course. This class can be taken as part of the HLS empirical track as a prerequisite for the Applied Quantitative Analysis and the Advanced Quantitative Analysis.

Exam Type: No Exam

Intended for law students with little or no background in mathematics and statistics, Fundamentals of Statistical Analysis will provide basic tools needed for designing, conducting and critically assessing empirical legal research. Topics include research design, introduction to probability, descriptive statistics, hypothesis testing, statistical inference, univariate and bivariate analysis using one and two-sample t-tests, z-tests, Chi2 and ANOVA. We will learn and practice the math behind the models, to understand how distributions, differences, choice and size of samples impact our results mathematically as well as theoretically. The course is hands-on and applied in nature, it provides students an opportunity to become proficient in the use of the Stata statistical software. Applying mathematical concepts on real data enables students to acquire analytic skills in a realistic research context, which helps understanding not only how data are analyzed, but also why they are analyzed. Students will produce a 10-12 page empirical paper at the end of the semester.

Students may complete a research paper that would satisfy the Analytical Paper requirement.