Quantitative Methods

Abstract

: Our article discusses recent developments in quantitative data collection and multivariate statistical analysis in quantitative social research. German-speaking authors have contributed heavily to the field of survey methodology and to discussions on the quality of data and the integration of survey data and digital trace data. We begin by discussing new developments in data collection. Afterwards we present a classification scheme for multivariate methods of analysis and discuss the state of the art in the most important areas, namely, regression, classification, clustering, and scaling. In terms of longitudinal data,we review recent contributions to the analysis of panel data, time series, event histories, and sequences. Further focal points are methods for the analysis of multilevel data and the opportunities and challenges arising from an increasing use of big data in the social sciences.