The Practice
Students rarely do a Sociology or Politics degree because they love numbers. In Principles of Quantitative Social Science, a second-year, 20-credit unit in SPAIS (45–60 students), confidence and prior experience vary widely. The cohort includes students on “with Quantitative Research Methods” pathways, single-honours students opting to take the unit for strategic or pragmatic reasons, and many international students, some more numerically confident than their home peers. The pedagogic challenge to design assessment that was inclusive for this diverse cohort.
The approach centred on multiple pathways to success, supported by three principles:
- Recognising that competence looks different across a varied cohort.
- Providing clear criteria and preparation for assessment.
- Embedding feedback and dialogue throughout the unit.
The summative assessment is a portfolio of analytic tasks: students must complete ALL tasks. This design resists “play to your strengths” assessment, requiring engagement with the full repertoire of quantitative research skills. Tasks progress from data description to model specification and interpretation, emphasising critical thinking, written explanation, and professional presentation as much as technical precision. Questions align with weekly teaching, enabling students to build the portfolio incrementally and manage cognitive load.
Because portfolios were unfamiliar in SPAIS, a formative mini portfolio (500 words) was introduced partway through the teaching block, which used the same structure, language, expectations and marking criteria as the summative assessment. This demystified the summative task and reduced anxiety. Cohort feedback, highlighting what went well and common areas for improvement, was delivered verbally in a dedicated cohort session (50 minutes), and in writing (4000 words) uploaded on Blackboard. Students who wished to receive personal feedback could revise and resubmit their formative work in line with the given cohort feedback and receive individual verbal feedback during office hours.
Collaborative Learning Labs provided a further layer of scaffolding. These weekly interactive cohort sessions complemented conventional lectures and PC workshops, allowing students to work collectively on applied tasks aligned with the portfolio. Activities included:
- physically organising themselves within the room by degree, confidence in STATA, and screen time to illustrate levels of measurement;
- creating Top Trumps cards from UK Data Service metadata to practise using documentation and identifying variables;
- a “Hackathon” in which groups designed and defended a regression model, using Padlet; and
- even short performances of poetry on “what makes good quantitative research”.
These activities promoted dialogue, peer learning, and creative engagement, reinforcing the criteria used for assessment. The labs established a creative, psychologically safe learning space where all questions were valid and where uncertainty was treated as a normal part of learning quantitative methods.
Weekly PC workshops then allowed students to run analyses with supervision. Workbooks guided each task, and short “independent progress checks” offered optional self-assessment. These mirrored portfolio questions, encouraging students to identify gaps early and seek support.
The Impact
Student engagement and confidence improved markedly. High attendance was sustained across the unit. Students who initially somewhat tentative reported that the portfolio helped them to recognised the breadth of skills as legitimate forms of quantitative competence. The formative mini-portfolio proved particularly effective in reducing assessment anxiety and enhancing preparedness.
Feedback became an expected and continuous part of learning, not only through formal touchpoints but embedded in small moments: verbal responses during labs, syntax checks in Stata, and visual confirmation through workbook screenshots. Each acted as a reassurance that progress was being made, or an invitation to ask for help.
Overall, the approach contributed to a stronger sense of belonging and engagement among students. As an educator, it also generated rich insight into the value of creativity in teaching and learning for reducing statistics anxiety.
The impact was that the follow-on unit had to increase its capacity to accommodate the single honours students who wanted to continue to develop this skillset.
Next Steps
The next stage is to integrate digital tools for interactive feedback. Current Word-based workbooks will be migrated into Blackboard using H5P for clearer organisation, embedded quizzes, and immediate formative feedback.
More broadly, the experience underscores the value of offering multiple ways for a diverse student body to develop competence, while continually linking each week’s learning to assessment expectations. The portfolio’s variety created wider entry points into confidence with quantitative research and demonstrated that there are many legitimate ways to be a “good” quantitative researcher.
Contact:
Dr Jennifer Whillans
jennifer.whillans@bristol.ac.uk
Leave a Reply