• Offered by ANU Centre for Social Research Methods
  • ANU College ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences
  • Classification Research
  • Course subject Social Research
  • Academic career PGRD
  • Course convener
    • Dr Matthew Gray
  • Mode of delivery Online or In Person
  • Offered in Autumn Session 2023
    Second Semester 2023
    See Future Offerings

This course will be offered in an intensive format during this period - Tuesday April 11 - to Monday April 17.

This course will provide students with a range of analytical techniques that can be used to answer policy and service delivery questions and how to measure the impact of policy. It will cover four key aspects of policy evaluations
- Causation: Did the program or policy have a direct impact on the outcome or outcomes of interest?
- Attribution: What was it about the program or policy that led to that impact?
- Implementation: What can be learned about how was the program or policy delivered?
- Documentation: How can key aspects of the evaluation be reported to an academic and policy audience?

Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion, students will have the knowledge and skills to:

  1. explain issues of causal inference and attribution;
  2. specify a research question related to policy evaluation that is answerable using empirical methods;
  3. communicate and critique existing policy evaluations in a rigorous manner;
  4. understand the assumptions, strengths and limitations of the main techniques for evaluating policies;
  5. use statistical software for applying impact evaluation techniques; and
  6. conduct empirical research using modern econometric techniques for policy evaluation.

Indicative Assessment

  1. Class participation (5) [LO 1,2,3,4,5,6]
  2. Assignment 1 - Critique of selected policy evaluation (1,500 words) (15) [LO 3,4]
  3. Assignment 2 - Research evaluation using real-world data (3,500 words) (35) [LO 2,4,5,6]
  4. Oral presentation - Policy brief from evaluation (10 minutes) (20) [LO 4,5,6]
  5. Class test (2 hours) (25) [LO 1,4,6]

The ANU uses Turnitin to enhance student citation and referencing techniques, and to assess assignment submissions as a component of the University's approach to managing Academic Integrity. While the use of Turnitin is not mandatory, the ANU highly recommends Turnitin is used by both teaching staff and students. For additional information regarding Turnitin please visit the ANU Online website.

Workload

130 hours of total student learning time made up from: a) 36 hours of contact over 12 weeks: made up of face-to-face lectures, tutorials and online activities; and b) 94 hours of independent student research, reading and writing.

Inherent Requirements

Not applicable

Requisite and Incompatibility

To enrol in this course you must be enrolled in one of the following programs: Graduate Certificate of Applied Data Analytics (CADAN), Graduate Certificate of Social Research (CSRES), Graduate Diploma of Applied Data Analytics (DADAN), Master of Applied Data Analytics (MADAN), Master of Social Research (MSRES), Master of Social Research (Advanced) (VSRES), or with permission of the convener.

Prescribed Texts

To be provided on the course Wattle site.

Preliminary Reading

Selected chapters from:
  • Glennerster, R., & Takavarasha, K. (2013). Running randomized evaluations: A practical guide. Princeton University Press.
  • Angrist, J. D., & Pischke, J. S. (2014). Mastering'metrics: The Path from Cause to Effect. Princeton University Press.

Fees

Tuition fees are for the academic year indicated at the top of the page.  

Commonwealth Support (CSP) Students
If you have been offered a Commonwealth supported place, your fees are set by the Australian Government for each course. At ANU 1 EFTSL is 48 units (normally 8 x 6-unit courses). More information about your student contribution amount for each course at Fees

Student Contribution Band:
14
Unit value:
6 units

If you are a domestic graduate coursework student with a Domestic Tuition Fee (DTF) place or international student you will be required to pay course tuition fees (see below). Course tuition fees are indexed annually. Further information for domestic and international students about tuition and other fees can be found at Fees.

Where there is a unit range displayed for this course, not all unit options below may be available.

Units EFTSL
6.00 0.12500
Domestic fee paying students
Year Fee
2023 $3960
International fee paying students
Year Fee
2023 $5820
Note: Please note that fee information is for current year only.

Offerings, Dates and Class Summary Links

ANU utilises MyTimetable to enable students to view the timetable for their enrolled courses, browse, then self-allocate to small teaching activities / tutorials so they can better plan their time. Find out more on the Timetable webpage.

The list of offerings for future years is indicative only.
Class summaries, if available, can be accessed by clicking on the View link for the relevant class number.

Autumn Session

Class number Class start date Last day to enrol Census date Class end date Mode Of Delivery Class Summary
3516 14 Mar 2023 07 Apr 2023 07 Apr 2023 16 May 2023 In Person N/A

Second Semester

Class number Class start date Last day to enrol Census date Class end date Mode Of Delivery Class Summary
6922 24 Jul 2023 31 Jul 2023 31 Aug 2023 27 Oct 2023 In Person N/A

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