What can I say? Although it was a tough course but sometimes things were tough, it felt so incredibly fruitful each week. I think the main reason was because even though there were so many quizzes and the assignments which required so much time, they were carefully crafted in a way which helped build my abilities in a progressive manner. There was definitely a close alignment between instruction (video) and the assessments (quizzes/exams). You'll never be asked questions you weren't prepared to answer because of the aforesaid alignment.

As I also work in a department which dabbles in educational research, I found the concepts thought in this course directly applicable to what's done in practice. Because the concepts were communicated so clearly, I could readily see examples of them in my everyday work!

This course has been formed greatly! I really enjoyed it. Every concept was trying to be explained in it's simplest form and with a lot of simple practical examples. The pictures were also helpful so much! The picture made me enjoy very much and it helped the course to not be tedious. And also I should claim without the pictures and drawings I would probably not be able to understand many things. They were essential specially we should consider a part of learning is by visual concept. And also the teacher's manipulation and presentation was really great and understandable. Your course made interested in research methods and in researching and probably I want to continue in this way. Thank you so much. God bless you:)

This Quantitative Methods course offered by University of Amsterdam in their Methods and Statistics in Social Sciences specialization was an excellent introduction to the world of quantitative research methods, and I found it to be a great way to learn the basics. The professor is great and was knowledgeable and super engaging, and the lectures were clear and easy to understand. Overall, this was an excellent course and I highly recommend it to anyone looking to gain a better understanding of quantitative methods

Being the first step toward the "Methods and Statistics in Social Sciences Specialization", "Quantitative Methods" was indeed a very comprehensive course, and perfect for beginners. The course covered the philosophical and historical foundations of the scientific method, as well as a systematic overview of research designs, including types of errors in research design, measurement, and sampling.

Really good, however, the peer reviewed assignments are a waste of time. Most people don't bother answering the question asked. I would have enjoyed the course more with just multiple choice tests. But still, 5/5.

I, however, have one critic. The instructor's voice is kind of not appropriate for the instruction. For me, it was hard to maintain my focus. But The course is beyond my expectations.

Excellent course, assignments were also doable and this was very well made for busy people who wants to do extra education. High quality and very clear transcripts. Thank you.

Great even for PhD students!

The peer review system has some flaws. People that take this course full-time are dependent on having enough assignments to peer-review, which is usually not the case. This hinders the planning of people who want to finish the course in a shorter timeframe.

I have done the course but I didn't get my certificate yet for reasons that I don,t know.

It was wonderful. I learnt so many things on basics of research. Just don't know why the course is named quantitative methods. Because many people might avoid the course thinking it will deal with mathematics and date work. Similarly, many people might join thinking they will learn specifically those mentioned above, such as me. While I didn't learn what I was expecting, such as statistical analysis, using spss, stata, R etc. it was a pleasant discovery and I learnt so many new things. The proof is I have finished the 8 week course in less than a month, for sure. I would have done even faster, but at later stages, controlled myself as the course was getting over. And the instruction by Madam was so wonderful, I felt like it's happening live, not pre-recorded. And the practical work, which requires reading, made it even worthwhile. Overall, it's a five star.

Only one suggestion if you might consider, is to rename the course such as Theories of quantitative methods or something which indicates it's not data-oriented. I would register myself for qualitative methods now, to learn the difference.

Was a great course! I learned a lot! The only thing that took the grade down for me were the quizzes. They are hard to do without there being room for interpretation. I still don't agree with all the "correct" answers though a further analysis often revealed an intent. Is a researcher withdrawing his work from being published a publication bias effect or a file-drawer effect. The effect that the publisher is not taking such papers is correct, and that the researcher is putting it away is correct. In this and several others I find the question does not narrow it down sufficiently or that both answers are technically correct. Others questions were really good, just hard and you had to find a subtle difference that were still differences. I also find questions like "what most scientist would agree" to be troublesome. I still learned so much I give five stars even though I see potential for growth. I would not have given a six out of six.

From the very first week, I found myself in some kind of rabbit hole, way far from my zone of comfort, learning different historical ontological and epistemological concepts. Wondering, why should I know the difference between Descartes and Bacon, but being completely amused, I continued learning about the history of scientific methods.Surprisingly, it indeed helped with further cases, where we learned about different kinds of fraud and sloppy science and ways of protecting by using better research designs. As a person with a technical background, I got used to the world, where the ability to perform a random sampling is something given and I had no idea how hard it could be to design a real research study.So, I really enjoyed this course and thankful for an opportunity to take a look into the social sciences realm and researchers' day-to-day problems.

Hello to the officials and all the esteemed members of the quantitative and coursera team,

I'm undaubtedly glad to know that i've passed successfully this useful and informative course. First of all, i thank to all venerable officials who accepted and approved my application. Then, i would like to express my gratitude to lofty and knowledgable professor, Annemarie Zand Scholten, for her vast knowledge, attractive teaching and for her well-versed mastery in this field. The contents of videos and Texs have been perfectly categorized in such a way that a student conveniently progresses and easily learns from begnning to end, from bottom to top. This course ist the most comprehensive, cohesive, didactic and educatinal i've ever seen. I believe coursera strongly play a role to expand the knowledge in reaearch field around the world.

Best

Dawlat Amiri

I really learned a lot in this course. It's well organized, and the instructor, Prof. Annemarie Zand Scholten, explains the concepts clearly and in an enjoyable, fun way. I would definitely recommend this course for anyone who wants to brush up on their research methods knowledge, or if they plan to study this topic as a beginner.

I have only two criticisms, and they are both regarding the written material (quizzes; transcripts of the lecture videos; and prompts and items in the assignments, the practice tests, and even in the final test): (1) The material keeps referring to 2014 as 'last year' or something similar. It should be updated so that it mentions just the year, without saying it was 'last year'. (2) There are lots of typos in the above-mentioned material as well, which sometimes causes confusion as to the intended meaning.

Well, i am completely satisfied from this course. As my field is Social Sciences it was my first contact and experience this lesson for the huge range in Methodology and Statistics. Although it needed to devote a lot of time in order to meet the deadlines, to sumbit quiz and assigments, i learned a lot. Material, videos, lectures and the ability of the professor to transmit all the nessesary knowledge it was a huge, useful advantage. Do not forget that lessons from distance are much more difficult to study and succeed than attending in universities. I will reccomend this lesson to everyone. Congratulations about organisation, material. One little fragment that it was negative i claim that i completed everything before the date that the course finishes and i am waiting the grades to be reviwed in order to receive my certification.

Really enriching course material and the method of explaining by Annemarie Zand Scholten. It gave me a good overview of the quantitative approach to contrast it with the qualitative approach i have been following at my workplace. The course material is very comprehensive and also the transcripts provided for each module. The detailed word to word transcripts really help to revise material while doing assignments and preparing for exams. The assignments really makes one think and helps to digest the course material in the process. The concepts and style of illustrations used in the video are also extremely helpful to understand the content heavy topic. The bonus video material provide the completeness due to the applied examples discussed in them.

Overall a very satisfying learning experience! Great!

I learned a great deal from this course - the professor is clear, well organized, and thorough. I would have appreciated an additional session early on about how to review a research article--especially looking at many of the elements that were requested in the assignments--to help students feel more prepared to actually perform the assignments. Being asked to review research articles toward the beginning of the course (lesson 3) felt a bit like being thrown into the deep end before learning to swim. Personally, I instantly felt "out of my depth" and seriously questioned whether I "belonged" in the course or should drop out. But I am glad that I did continue, and hope that others will too, as it is a well-taught, valuable course. Thank you for presenting it.

I learned a lot more than I expected! There were great illustrations and the concepts were complex but the cat pictures made it simple to understand. The PDF notes helped me a lot as well in reviewing before assignments and quizzes. Interviews with professionals in research at the end of the week were cool and helped me see how a career in research might look. The Dutch accent is also nice to listen to from the perspective of a Canadian or at least personally. The only down side was that peer reviews were often marked with single words like “ok” “good” “great” and did not provide the kind of opportunity to learn that I think they were supposed to. Indeed, don’t count on learning much from the peer reviews of your assignments.

This course was very well taught - supplemented with extra videos that were extremely helpful. I did find the assignments challenging, but this is how to learn! The exams were also very challenging, and I feel as though this must parallel being in a university classroom, which is what MOOCs aim to do. In a world where science is under threat, this course is a refreshing antidote with very solid foundational material wonderfully presented. I feel very lucky to have taken this course, and to have learned the concepts taught within. Thank you very much Dr. Zand Scholten - while challenged and "under the gun" at times, I really appreciate the rigor of your course, and look forward to others in the series.

Really solid course on the foundations of quantitative methods for social and behavioral sciences. If you aim to learn the basics or improve your theoretical, methodological, and analytical understanding of quantitative research methods, you should definitely enroll in this course. However, it does not cover statistics and other technical skills required to produce research using quantitative data. That is because this is the first course of the specialization in Methods and Statistics in Social Sciences offered by the UvA, so by following the other courses included in the specialization you may acquire such knowledge and skills.

Found Annemarie Zand Scholten's presentation outstanding. The lean combination of simple supplemental illustrations with clear, condensed live narration was perfect for learning, keeping cognitive and visual load to a minimum and using each 'channel' (listening, viewing) to best effect. In combination with the possibility to save notes and use full transcriptions, it offered a lot of ways to study and review. A small critical note: it would be nice to know the reason for wrong answers on the final exam (there was no screencast or explanation). That leaves a learner curious :) Now - on to the other four courses in the specialty!

Excellent course. The lectures were very clear and the quiz questions that were embedded in the videos supported my understanding of the materials. The same is true for the assignments, the quizzes as well as the peer graded assignments.

I also want to say that I really enjoyed the illustrations on the slides. They were not only funny and sweet but really helped making the material easier to understand.

The interviews at the end of every module were very interesting and provided further insight into the respective topics.

Thank you to the entire team! It is obvious that you put in a lot of work into producing this online course.

This course was on a topic I have never been exposed to and will be necessary for ongoing research work. I was both amazed and gratified by the way that the University of Amsterdam and Professor Annemarie Zand Scholten conducted the course and imparted knowledge. The difficulty of the material for me was in the language and the newness of the content that was made quite easy to follow. The quizzes, assignments and tests were at the right level and built to a crescendo. Really can't say enough good things but will say that it was everything I needed and delivered with the highest professionalism than I had expected. Kudos!

Personally I truly enjoyed the course . I´ve done a couple of these course since I finished my masters, and this course has been the one that has demanded me to study the most. On the other hand, the fact that it has weekly written assignments were you have to analyze other texts specially selected helps you develop the abilities you´re acquiring and apply the knowledge the class provides. This is a very complete course that approaches an university environment and demands a higher level of commitment that the average coursera courses I´ve taken and if you´re like me it actually shows you how rusty you´re at  study.