This course is primarily geared toward enhancing students’ abilities to use and interpret statistical data in social research and decision-making contexts based upon their engagement with elementary and intermediate-level statistical techniques. Students will be exposed to elements of descriptive and inferential statistics in the context of questions and problems that emerge in applied social settings and policy-relevant studies. In this regard, the relevance of univariate, bivariate and multivariate statistics will be highlighted and reinforced especially as tools for social decision-making. The course recognizes the theoretical foundations that underlie statistical decision-making in applied research and introduces students to essential laws, theorems and theoretical distributions that are critical in informing such decisions. Additionally, students are exposed to discussions and practical scenarios that will enable them to appreciate the utility of associated statistical measures, their computation and their interpretation. This should enable students to use appropriate socio-economic statistics in needs assessments to determine needs and in the formulation, development and implementation of development policy. As such, exposure to this course would enhance students’ capacity to function in policy and related environments without requiring further training from their employers. Students will also be introduced to SPSS in order to enhance their skills in data management, data manipulation, data analysis and the interpretation of SPSS output