Exploratory and Descriptive Statistics

Professor Julie Scott Jones is a professor of sociology and the former Head of the Department of Sociology at Manchester Metropolitan University.  Julie has had a career long interest in social science research methods, editing seven books on the subject, including volumes on applied ethics.   She was the founder and original Director of the Manchester Metropolitan University Q-Step Centre, which received £1.15 million in funding from the Nuffield Foundation-ESRC-HEFCE.  Q-Step was an ambitious programme to change the training of quantitative methods and data literacy in social science students. She has co-authored several journal articles on the pedagogy of quantitative methods teaching, based on her current research in this field.  In 2022 her co-authored textbook Exploratory and Descriptive Statistics (2022) was published by SAGE.  Julie currently teaches quantitative data analysis and data management to final year undergraduate students.

Dr John E. Goldring is the Co-Director of the Q-Step Centre at Manchester Metropolitan University, one of 15 centres across the UK to receive funding to promote the development of quantitative methods teaching across the HE sector. Joining Manchester Metropolitan University in 2004, his initial research and teaching focus was on men, masculinity and health. He started teaching statistical analysis in 2012 where he developed a narrative approach to working with numbers based on a Freirean principles of raising critical consciousness and challenging social injustice. Teaching on research methods units at both undergraduate and postgraduate level, he has also successfully supervised a number of PhD students through to completion. In addition to co-authoring of a number of journal articles on pedagogic approaches to teaching statistics, he has written on ethnographies of men’s health.