1 MEDICAL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA Department of Healthcare Leadership & Management Doctor of Health Administration & Leadership DHA-867 Quantitative Methods for Research Jan 4 – Mar 14, 2012...

1 MEDICAL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA Department of Healthcare Leadership & Management Doctor of Health Administration & Leadership DHA-867 Quantitative Methods for Research Jan 4 – Mar 14, 2012 On-campus session – Feb 3-4, 2012 INSTRUCTOR: James S Zoller, Ph.D. Office Telephone: 843-792-3849 E-mail: [email protected] COURSE NUMBER: DHA 867 COURSE CREDITS: 3 COURSE STATUS: Required SEMESTER: Spring 2012 COURSE OVERVIEW: This course is designed to give students the skills to use data sets and conduct quantitative analysis to address research questions. The course will use actual public-use secondary data sets to provide students experience with data management. The course will also provide presentation of statistical principles and methods most commonly used in health services research. Finally, the course will prepare students in the use of SPSS statistical analysis software. COURSE OBJECTIVES: After completing this course, students should have attained the following learning objectives: A. Identify and access secondary data sets to use for answering research questions B. Format and manage quantitative data sets using SPSS software C. Choose appropriate statistical analysis methods to test hypotheses D. Conduct statistical tests and prepare results presentation using SPSS REQUIRED SOFTWARE: IBM SPSS Statistics 18 (www.spss.com) REQUIRED TEXT: Field, Andy. (2009) Discovering Statistics Using SPSS. Sage Publications. ISBN: 978-1-84787-907-3 METHODS OF PRESENTATION: The class will be conducted using a combination of at home study, in-class lecture and in-class exercises. Each student will be expected to have access to a working version of SPSS 18 both at home and in class. CLASS ATTENDANCE AND PARTICIPATION: Attendance at all session meetings is HAP 867 – Quantitative Methods for Research 2 mandatory. A student will only be excused from any particular part of the seminar with advance approval by the Instructor or sufficient documentation after the fact in the case of illness or another sudden problem. The required text and other material should be reviewed before the beginning of the session. Significant time in all sessions will be taken for class discussion and questions. Students are expected to actively participate in the session interactions with the Instructor. Along with session attendance, the quality of this participation (as measured by the level of factual mastery, creativity, analytical rigor and thoughtful articulation of personal values and substantive opinions evidenced during discussions) will determine the participation component of the course grade. COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADE DISTRIBUTION: Students will be graded on completion of the assignment project. GRADING POLICIES: Grades for each course component will be given on a 100 point scale that directly corresponds to the University grading system (See the Bulletin of the Medical University of South Carolina for a complete description of the grading system.) Classwork that is not completed according to prescribed course guidelines will be significantly penalized in grading. Classwork that is submitted after the due date will also be significantly penalized in grading, unless there is extraordinary and documented justification for late completion. ASSIGNMENT: Each student will identify a secondary data source (health services related, at least 1,000 observations, at least 20 variables) available in text or csv format, import and set appropriate traits for the data in SPSS, present graphs depicting descriptive statistics for at least five separate variables (mix of categorical and continuous), and conduct at least two hypothesis tests. Submit a paper (max 10 pages) in APA style containing a brief description of the chosen data set, the descriptive tables and graphs, the results of the hypothesis tests and an interpretation of the test results. Also, submit a copy of the SPSS data file used for analysis. The data set is expected to have all used variables properly labeled with traits set properly. ? Data set 20% ? Descriptives 20% ? Hypothesis tests 20% ? Interpretation 20% ? Clarity of writing 20% HAP 867 – Quantitative Methods for Research 3 TOPIC OUTLINE OF COURSE: A. Introduction B. Statistical models C. SPSS D. Data presentation E. Assumptions F. Correlation G. Regression H. Logistic Regression I. Comparing two means J. Comparing several means K. Non-parametric tests L. Categorical data