Cursos / 1º Ciclo / Faculty of Law :: Criminology

ANÁLISE DE DADOS QUANTITATIVOS - 2025/2026

2º curricular year
Semestralidade: 1st semester
ECTS: 6

Teachers

Leading Teacher: Prof. Doutora Sofia Marques
Assistant Professor: Prof. Doutora Sofia Marques

Class type and School hours

Orientação Tutorial : 1 Horas
Teórico-prática : 2 Horas

Teaching Language

Portuguese

Main Aims/Objectives

To understand and appropriately apply descriptive and inferential statistics procedures, using the statistical software IBM SPSS Statistics (Statistical Package for Social Sciences).

Specific Aims/Objectives

Obtain basic statistical knowledge necessary for the preparation and understanding of quantitative-based studies.
Select and apply, in a critical and well-founded way, the most appropriate statistical procedure.
Present and correctly interpret the results.
Understand and use statistical language, particularly with regard to reading and writing research reports, according to APA standards.

Skills to be acquired

It is expected that at the end of the UC students will be able to:
- Use IBM SPSS Statistics for data analysis.
- Understand and use statistical language.
- Understand, select and apply descriptive and inferential statistics procedures appropriately.

Teaching Procedures

Theoretical-practical classes using the expository method and exemplification of the resolution of practical exercises (using target variables for study in criminology research) using IBM SPSS Statistics. In tutorial classes, brief work is carried out to apply knowledge and skills, involving statistical analysis and respective report writing in accordance with APA standards. Classes take place in a computer laboratory.

Programme

1. Using IBM SPSS Statistics - Overview of the application in a Windows environment: Basic operations and commands. Construction and manipulation of a data file.
2. Descriptive Statistics - Measures of central tendency, Measures of dispersion and Forms of data representation (frequency tables and graphs) using SPSS.
3. Theoretical probability distributions: Normal Distribution.
4. Inferential Statistics
Formulation of hypotheses: null and alternative hypotheses. Significance probabilities. Statistical errors.
Association and Correlation Tests (Chi Square; Pearson; Spearman; Point Biserial)
Student´s t test for comparing means of two independent samples
- non-parametric equivalent Mann Whitney Test
Student´s t test for comparing means of two paired samples
- non-parametric equivalent Wilcoxon test.

Evaluation Type

The curricular unit is assessed through 2 written points throughout the semester. In addition, a written work consisting of a quantitative report on a provided database, written according to APA standards. Students must be present in 70% of classes to have continuous assessment.

Teaching Resources

SPSS Software
Projector
Computer

Sustainability Objectives

4 - Quality Education

Keywords

quantitative data
descriptive statistics
inferential statistics

Main Bibliography

Complementary Bibliography