TJTJ7702 Quantitative Research Methods in Information Systems (3–6 cr)

The course provides the students with a comprehensive overview of the quantitative research that is most commonly conducted in information systems, concentrating on both the overall research process and the most commonly used data collection and data analysis methods (e.g., surveys, experiments, analysis of variance, factor analysis, regression analysis, path analysis, structural equation modelling, and qualitative comparative analysis). The course is very pragmatic in nature and aims to explain the covered topics in a simple and straightforward manner from the perspective of an applied researcher. For example, the course will provide the students with step-by-step demonstrations of how different statistical analyses can be conducted by using different statistical software (covering both commercial state-of-the-art software and free R packages) and how their results should be interpreted and reported as research papers. The students will also be able to train the covered topics in practice through assignments. As the data for the assignments, the students can use the demonstration data provided by the course or their own data, in which case they can use the course as a platform for developing the first drafts of their own quantitative research papers and receiving feedback on them.

After completing the course, the students

1) know the typical process of conducting quantitative research in information systems,

2) know the typical data collection and data analysis methods used in quantitative research in information systems,

3) know which research methods to choose in specific research situations and how to justify these choices,

4) know how to interpret the research results and report them as research papers,

5) are able to apply the aforementioned knowledge to publish high-quality quantitative research papers of their own, and

6) are able to apply the aforementioned knowledge to review the quality of the quantitative research papers published by others.

To be announced at the beginning of the course.