Syllabus

Sociology 541: Analysis of Sociological Data I

Spring 2004

Julie Phillips

Department of Sociology

Office: A356 Lucy Stone Hall / Room 203, IHHCPAR, 30 College Avenue

Email: jphillips@sociology.rutgers.edu

Phone: 445-7032 (Sociology office) / 932-1824 (IHHCPAR office)

Office Hours: Mondays, 11:00am to 12:00pm (IHHCPAR office) or by appointment

Course Description

This course is the first part of a two-semester sequence (541 and 542) designed to introduce you to methods of research and elementary statistics. Through this course, you will be introduced to a range of standard statistical techniques used in sociological analysis. The course will be taught under the assumption that registered students have little or no statistical background. By the end of the semester, you should have a solid understanding of a variety of statistical concepts and techniques and be prepared to tackle multivariate regression, the starting point of the second course in the Sociology graduate statistics sequence.

Required Texts

Kurtz, Norman R. 1999. Statistical Analysis for the Social Sciences. Allyn and Bacon.

Recommended Readings

Sweet, Stephen A. and Karen Grace-Martin. 2003. Data Analysis with SPSS. Allyn and Bacon.

I will be placing in the Graduate Library a set of articles from the American Sociological Review that have employed some of the statistical techniques you will be learning in this course. I strongly encourage you to read these articles to get a sense of how these techniques are applied in sociological research.

Other References

Freedman, D., R. Pisani, and R. Purves. Statistics. (Less mathematical, more verbal explanation)

Devore, J. and R. Peck. Statistics: The Exploration and Analysis of Data.

Tanur, J. Statistics: A Guide to the Unknown. (Full of examples and a useful source for projects)

Wonnacott, T. and R. Wonnacott. Introductory Statistics. (More mathematical presentation)

Computing

As you've already had some background in SPSS through the Methods course taught last fall, this course will use SPSS for Windows. SPSS manuals are available in the computer lab and can also be purchased directly from SPSS Inc.

If you are familiar with another statistical package, such as SAS or STATA, you should feel free to use that program if you prefer. However, please let me know if you intend to use a different software package.

Course Requirements

Readings: Readings from the text will be assigned each week and it is expected that you will have completed the reading before the class. It is also strongly encouraged that you complete all the review exercises at the end of each chapter to ensure that you've understood the concepts. Learning statistics requires lots of practice.

Problem Sets/Computer Assignments: Weekly assignments from the textbook will be handed out at the end of each class and are due at the beginning of the next class. These assignments account for 30% of your final grade.

Mid-Term Examination: There will be a midterm exam addressing concepts covered in the first half of the course. The exam will constitute 30% of your final grade.

Final Oral/Written Report: You will be required to collect your own data set and apply the techniques learned in this course to analyze the data. You have several options with regard to the data set you choose to construct. I will make available two data sets that you can analyze. One contains information on the fifty states of the United States and the other is an extract of the General Social Survey. These data sets contains a series of variables and you can construct a smaller data set from this information, focusing on a topic that is of greatest interest to you. If you prefer, you may analyze another data set with which you are familiar, formulating a question of interest. The last class will be devoted to oral reports of these findings. Each class member will be allotted approximately ten minutes toward this end. A short paper (10 pages) detailing the analysis will also be required. This report and paper account for 35% of your grade.

Attendance: Class attendance and participation are an expectation of the course. These factors constitute 5% of your final grade.

Tentative Class Schedule

Week 1: January 21, 2004

Topic: Introduction to statistics

Reading: Kurtz, Chapter 1

Week 2: January 28, 2004

Topic: Basic concepts

Displaying and describing data

Computer Lab and Introduction to SPSS

Reading: Kurtz, Chapter 2

Week 3: February 4, 2004

Topic: Measures of Central Tendency

Measures of Dispersion

Reading: Kurtz, Chapter 3

Week 4: February 11, 2004

Topic: Probability and the Normal Distribution

Reading: Kurtz, Chapters 4 and 5

Week 5: February 18, 2004

Topic: Basis of Statistical Inference (Point Estimates and Confidence Intervals)

Reading: Kurtz, Chapter 6

Week 6: February 25, 2004

Topic: Hypothesis Testing and Significance Tests

Reading: Kurtz, Chapter 7

Week 7: March 3, 2004

Topic: Comparing two groups (T tests)

Reading: Kurtz, Chapter 8

Week 8: March 10, 2004

Midterm exam (open-book)

MARCH 17, 2004 SPRING BREAK

Week 9: March 24, 2004

Topic: ANOVA

Reading: Kurtz, Chapter 10

Week 10: March 31, 2004

NO CLASS - I WILL BE ATTENDING A CONFERENCE OUT OF TOWN

To make up this time, I will arrange a three-hour time slot in April when I will be available for individual appointments with those students wishing to discuss their final report.

Week 11: April 7, 2004

Topic: Bivariate Regression

Reading: Kurtz, Chapter 11 (pp.258-278)

Week 12: April 14, 2004

Topic: Correlation/Linear Association

The Chi-Square Test

Reading: Kurtz, Chapter 9 (pp. 215-222) and Chapter 11 (pp. 278-290)

Week 13: April 21, 2004

Topic: Measures of Association

Reading: Kurtz, Chapter 12

Week 14: April 28, 2004

Topic: Final Reports

Oral reports will be given in class. Written versions are due at the conclusion of class. No late papers will be accepted.