Syllabus: UCLA Soc. 210A, Intermediate Statistical Methods, part 1 of 3

25sep2000

Syllabus:

Intermediate Statistical Methods, part 1 of 3

UCLA Sociology 210A. Enrollment number 747-058-200

Professor: David D. McFarland

Web Pages for Fall 2000

Outline for course content
ClassWeb site for announcements, discussion board
Syllabus (this document) for logistics

Class meetings

Classroom: Tuesday and Thursday, 11:00 to 12:15, Hershey 1657
Laboratory: To Be Arranged (Bring schedule to first class meeting)

Professor

David D. McFarland. Email: mcfarland@soc.ucla.edu. Office: Hershey 2401, phone 825-6380. Messages may be left with secretaries in Hershey 2201, phone 825-1313. Office hours: TBA. Usually but not always available right after class for quick questions.

TA

Shige Song. Email: sgsong@ucla.edu. Office: TBA. Mailbox in Hershey 2201. Office hours: TBA.

Course Description

This is the first quarter of the year-long sequence that is primarily for first year graduate students in the Department of Sociology (and others who did not take it during their first year). The A and B parts are required of all sociology graduate students.

This sequence serves the triple purposes of (a) giving all students some exposure to statistical reasoning of the sorts practiced in various fields of sociology; (b) preparing students for substantive coursework and readings that include quantitative information, whether or not those students intend to do quantitative research themselves; and (c) preparing students for more advanced methodological courses.

210A, this first term of the sequence, focuses on three general areas: descriptive statistics (mostly univariate); probability and study design; and principles of statistical inference. Throughout the course we will use networked computers to access research resources, run analyses in STATA software, and present results.

Relationships to Subsequent Courses

After completing 210A, students will continue in the winter quarter in 210B (taught winter 2001 by Rebecca Emigh), which focuses mainly on multiple regression and some close relatives.

210C (taught spring 2001 by Rob Mare) focuses on more complex multivariate models, especially those with dependent variables for which ordinary multiple regression is inappropriate.

Substantive topics whose courses explicitly list prerequisites in the 210 sequence include: social psychology (224AB), family and economic systems (225), social demography (226AB), social stratification and mobility (239AB), and marriage formation and dissolution (257). And for many other topics the skills covered in the 210 sequence would be useful, if not explicitly prerequisite.

Beyond the 210 sequence there are more advanced statistical courses, including: M242, Analysis of Data with Qualitative and Limited Dependent Variables; and M286, Applied Event History Analysis.

Other methodological courses which have prerequisites in the 210 sequence include: Social Network Methods (208AB), Survey Data Analysis (212AB), Techniques of Demographic and Ecological Analysis (213AB), Experimental Sociology (215AB), and Survey Research Design (216AB). [Study Design (212C) shows no explicit prerequisite.]

Prerequisite

Sociology M18 (introductory statistics) or permission of instructor. (Around campus there are several introductory statistics courses, such as Psychology 100A and Biostatistics 100A, as well as our own Sociology M18.)

Do not be misled by the registrar's notation "No enforced requisites". All that means is that URSA doesn't check whether students have or have not met the prerequisites. As defined in the registrar's dictionary, "No enforced requisites" does not mean "no prerequisite", only that the prerequisite is not sufficiently simple-minded for URSA to enforce it automatically. URSA could be programmed to lock out anyone whose UCLA record does not include Soc M18. But URSA does not know the corresponding course numbers at the various colleges in which our graduate students did their undergraduate work. URSA may be smart enough to understand "Soc. M18", but it is not smart enough to understand "or equivalent".

That said, I will not be checking people's transcripts either. Furthermore, each part of the course will include a bit of review material, for the student whose intro stat was taken some time ago. But any student who takes this without having had a previous statistics course should plan to work doubly hard; this course is really not intended as a first statistics course.

Requirements and Grading

class participation (approx. 20%). Students will be called on to present to the class their results for some of the assigned exercises. Depending on how well that works, I reserve the option of giving some brief unannounced quizzes. Also, students will give brief reports on individually selected sociology journal articles that utilize either the statistical tools then being covered, or elaborations thereof (anticipating materials in subsequent courses).
exams (approx. 60%). There will be three open-book exams. Some, but not all, of them may be take-home.
take-home assignments (approx. 20%). In addition to assignments gone over in class (see above), others will be turned in for grading.

Books and Supplies

The UCLA Store has been asked to stock the following books:

Hamilton, Lawrence C. 1998. Statistics with STATA 5. Belmont CA: Duxbury. ISBN 0-534-26559-6
Moore, David S., and George F. McCabe 1999. Introduction to the Practice of Statistics, 3rd edn. New York: W. H. Freeman. ISBN 0-7167-3502-4

In addition to the books, you will need:

one PC-formatted 100 meg Zip disk. Note: Get the 100 meg size of Zip disk, not the 250, for compatibility with both sizes of Zip drives, including the 100 meg drive in my office; but if you are buying a new Zip drive, you probably want the 250 meg drive, which works with both sizes of disks.
someplace to store backup copies of everything you put on your Zip disk. This might be a second Zip disk, for example, or the hard disk of your home computer if you have one; I don't really care where you keep your backup copies, but you should not be so foolish as to have only one copy of your work.