408 Avery
Tuesday 11 AM – 1 PM
Courseworks | Zoom | Perusall
Anthony Vanky
Buell 304
Office Hours: https://vanky.co/officehours
Welcome to the Columbia University Urban Planning Ph.D. program, or welcome back!
Doctoral Colloquium I and III meet together and complement Doctoral Colloquium II in discussing various social science paradigms, with a particular emphasis on quantitative and computational methods. As the Ph.D. prepares students to conduct scholarly research, this course is foundational to your development as a scholar. This course aims to give students an overview of the research design process.
The course uses examples of research debates from urban planning to illustrate different research strategies. Typically, the readings will include empirical studies accompanied by readings that explain the research strategy. Students can also propose alternative strategies for addressing research questions. Through practice, students will hone their research design skills. In the final part, students will present and critique each other’s research designs.
Interactive Learning
This course is driven by the collective efforts of all of its participants: We will challenge each other, find synthesis and disagreement, review and support each other’s work, and lead conversations. You are in the conductor’s seat as much as the instructor. Come prepared with something to bring to the table, and be open to both fantastically brilliant ideas as well as equally enlightened half-baked questions… But always bring something to contribute to the discussion and through the assignments.
Engaging Quantitative Methods
This class will survey a variety of concepts, methods, and approaches throughout the course of the semester. We will discuss design, ethics, and considerations for engaging in research and particularly with quantitative and computational approaches. With the number of topics we are covering in this class, it is not an expectation that anyone will be fluent in statistical methods. However, it is the intent of this class to give you the foundation to critically engaged with scholarship that uses these approaches or gives you the base to cut to you, exploring these topics for your own work.
Even if you have not completed a statistics course (as it’s not a requirement of this class!), you’re invited to approach these topics with bravery and curiosity and to consider how these topics make influence your work regardless of the mythological approaches you may plan to use in the future.
