Schedule

This course meets on Wednesdays, 6:30-9:00PM in 3410 James. It is expected that students will meet with the instructor regularly outside of the class meetings, as needed.

Our main text will be OpenIntro Statistics (3rd edition), a free, open-source textbook. You can download a PDF of the book for free or buy a low-cost paperback. There is also a PDF optimized for tablets. The purpose of the readings is to make the lecture and exercises in class easier to understand. In the schedule, below, the chapters refer to this textbook. I've also prepared an online primer, An Introduction to Data Analysis & Presentation, to help you learn the material. In addition, I have made available, in the comment below, some additional readings on the topics we will discuss.

Topics:

I. The Linear Model

8/30 Introduction to multivariate analysis & reintroduction to R. Data preparation. Reviewing recoding and indexing.
9/6 Inference, the General Linear Model, and the Generalized Linear Model. Read chapters 4, 5.
9/13 Least squares regression. Read chapter 7.
9/20 No classes
9/27 Logistic Regression. Read chapter 8.

Additional readings for this section: Gager & Yakibu, Journal of Family Issues 31(2):135–163; Fujimoto, The Sociological Quarterly 45(1):91-111.

Examination 1 due by the start of class on 10/4.

II. Modeling Count Data

10/4 Proportions and Odds. Read Explaining Odds Ratios, The Odds Ratio, and chapters 2 and 6.
10/11 Log-linear Analysis / Poisson regression. Read Log-Linear Tutorial at StatSoft, Poisson Regression Examples with R.
10/18 More on Poisson regression. Read Regression Models for Count Data in R.

Additional readings: Shortell, Mass Communication & Society 14:431-453; Beck, The Sociological Quarterly 24(2):273-285.

Examination 2 due by the start of class on 11/8.

III. Structure Analysis and Grouping

11/1 Principal components analysis. Read PCA in R.
11/8 Cluster analysis. Read Hierarchical Cluster Analysis in R.
11/15 Multidimensional scaling. Read Multidimensional Scaling in R, Comparing latent structure approaches: PCA, MDS, clustering.

Additional readings for this section: Swedlow & Wickoff, American Politics Research 37(6):1048-1087; Shortell, Sociology of Religion 62(1): 87-103; Cappell & Guterbach, American Sociological Review 57:266-273.

Examination 3 due by the start of class on 11/29

IV. Time-based Analysis

11/29 Event history analysis (Survival analysis). Read Survival Analysis with R
@ 12/6 Time series I (trend analysis). Read TBA
12/13 No classes. Reading day
12/20 Time series II (moving average, autoregressive, and ARMA models), Time Series III (transfer-function regression).

Additional readings for this section: Hiroi & Omori, Politics & Policy 41(1):39-64; Hwang & Xi, Social Forces 86(3):1079-1104; Phillips, Demography 50:591-614.

Final examination, due by midnight on 12/22.