Statistics for Arts Management

Statistics for arts management

Prof. Chiara Paolino; Prof. Emiliano Sironi

COURSE AIMS

The aim of the course is to provide students with the main quantitative techniques for analysing and interpreting data in the fields of arts and management: The course is divided in two parts.

The first part aims at offering a gentle theoretical introduction on the main statistical tools for data analysis, reviewing the role of univariate descriptive statistics and introducing techniques and indicators exploringthe relationship existing between two or more variables. The theoretical lectures are accompanied by the discussion of practical cases and by examples of data analyses implemented with Excel or SPSS. The second part aims at providing students with the analysis of the relevant literature in the field of quantitative research in arts management. Students will analyse pivotal papers with the instructor with the goal to build the ability to formulate interesting research questions and hypotheses. In addition, students will build their own survey to test their hypotheses within their own project.

COURSE CONTENT

Module I (Prof. Emiliano Sironi)

Review of basic concepts in probability. The normal distribution and its graphical representation; the central limit theorem.

Statistical Inference. Data collection and main sampling techniques, summary statistics; point and interval estimation.

Multivariate analysis. Measures of association between variables (covariance and correlation); the simpleand multiple linear regression model; interpretation of the coefficients and inference in linear models; goodness of fit, production and interpretation of outputs using a statistical software (Excel or SPSS).

Applications of statistics to arts and management. Discussion of practical cases, based on the presentation and the analysis of datasets.

Module II (Prof. Chiara Paolino)

Literature Review in arts management. Reading and discussing exemplary papers in the field of arts management.

How to formulate relevant research questions and hypotheses in your field. Defining an interesting research gap and hypotheses to address it in your field of study.

How to build a survey in arts management.Build up your own survey on the topics that are interesting for you.

READING LIST

For attending students: Materials prepared by the intructors. Additional support materials will be indicated at the beginning of the course.

For non attending students

A. Agresti,Statistical Methods for the Social Sciences, University of Florida(chapters 4-5-6-9-10-11)

and

J.W. Creswell, Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches, Sage publications, 2013 (chapterts 1-2-3-8).

TEACHING METHOD

Lectures and practical exercises.

ASSESSMENT METHOD

A mid-course and a final assignment with a shorter final examination for attending students.

A full written examination for non-attending students on the materials and the books provided by the instructors.

Details will be announced by the instructors and posted on their webpage or on Blackboard.