Quantitative Research
Quantitative Research
Note: All bolded & underlined words include hyperlinks to the respective resource. All videos should have the option to add captions, and all written resources should be compatible with screen-reading tools/software. Please report any accessibility issues to mwilliamson@ubalt.edu
Thank you to everyone who has contributed to this growing list of resources! If you know of a resource that should be included, please feel free to share the details by emailing mwilliamson@ubalt.edu
National Centre for Research Methods
NCRM provides a collection of tutorials on a variety of topics, including statistical analysis and modeling. Browse through the resources here.
Sage Research Methods provides a large collection of resources related to quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research. Access their library here.
Unsure which statistical method you should use when analyzing quantitative data? Try taking this quiz from Sage to see if it can help narrow down your options!
R is a free programming language that's great for statistics, data analysis, and creating visualizations. It's widely used in research and data science, with thousands of packages available to help you do just about anything with data. RStudio is a popular interface for R that makes it easier to write code, explore data, and manage your projects all in one place.
To install R & RStudio for free:
Video tutorial for installing (courtesy of Tech Related Tips): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrEe2TLr3MI
Looking for free resources to get started learning R?
"Are you ready for R? A Workbook for R for Political Science and Beyond: Version 2.0" by Michael Strausz (last updated March 13, 2025)
"RStudio IDE: Cheatsheet" by Posit
Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem)
The V-Dem Project provides a comprehensive set of datasets that measure five distinct "varieties" of democracy: electoral, liberal, participatory, deliberative, and egalitarian. These datasets offer in-depth indicators on aspects like political rights, civil liberties, governance, and more, across over 200 countries and territories.
The V-Dem Dataset - "A multidimensional and disaggregated dataset that reflects the complexity of the concept of democracy as a system of rule that goes beyond the simple presence of elections"
ERT Dataset - "The ERT dataset identifies episodes of democratization (liberalizing autocracy, democratic deepening) and autocratization (democratic regression, autocratic regression)"
V-Party Dataset - "Varieties of Party Identity and Organization (V-Party) is a dataset examining the policy positions and organizational structures of political parties across the world"
The V-Dem website offers easy-to-use graphing tools that let you visualize the data in a simple, interactive way. You can create custom graphs to explore trends across countries, regions, and time periods. Available here.
World Bank Open Data provides free access to a huge range of global development data. You can find information on things like economic growth, poverty, education, and health across countries and regions. Available here.