Master’s Degree Requirements

Master’s Degree

The following are sample 20-month schedules for full-time students who wish to concentrate studies in the survey statistics, social science or data science aspects of survey and data science.  Opportunities for part-time study can be discussed with program staff.  All MS students must complete the following requirements:

These degree sequences are illustrative and do not define all programs of study. Students will, with the consent of their advisors, be given the flexibility to depart from these course sequences to meet particular training needs. For example, students may craft, through approved cognate and electives, a program of study that emphasizes business applications of survey methods, particularly in marketing and market research. Advisors will work with students and faculty in the School of Business Administration to find courses that will allow the student to acquire marketing or market research training to complement the survey methodology training offered by the program.

The survey statistics area of concentration is designed for students who wish to specialize in areas such as sample design, estimation in complex samples, variance estimation, statistical measurement error models, and statistical adjustments for missing data.

The social science area of concentration is designed for students who wish to specialize in areas such as questionnaire design, design of interviewing systems, computer assistance in data collection, effects of mode of data collection, cognitive psychological insights into survey measurement, and efforts to reduce various nonsampling errors in data collection.

The data science area of concentration is designed for students who wish to specialize in the more computational aspects of survey methodology and research involving “big data,” including data visualization, management and analysis of large and messy data sets, human-computer interaction in survey research, and machine learning algorithms.

Certificate

Please contact the Michigan Program in Survey and Data Science for information related to options for certificate study.