THE UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN ONTARIO

Department of Sociology

 

Sociology 300a UW002: Advanced Statistics (Fall 2002)

 

 

Instructor: Martin Cooke

Office: SSC 2250

Phone: 661-2111 x82750

E-mail: mjcooke@uwo.ca

Class times and Locations (UW002)

Monday 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. in SSC 3010

Wednesday 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. in SSC 3010

Office Hours: Mon. & Wed. 3:00 to 4:00

 

 

This course builds upon the topics covered in Sociology 231, and extends them to introduce techniques such as ANOVA, ANCOVA, multiple regression and related models.  The emphasis of the course will be on practical application of statistical techniques as well as developing an understanding the conceptual links between them.  The assignments are intended to provide practice in using statistical computing packages, emphasizing both conceptual understanding and the interpretation of results.

 

Prerequisite: Sociology 231 is the prerequisite for this course, and according to University policy, "(u)nless you have either the requisites for this course or written special permission from your Dean to enroll in it, you will be removed from this course and it will be deleted from your record. This decision may not be appealed. You will receive no adjustment to your fees in the event that you are dropped from a course for failing to have the necessary prerequisites." This and other academic policies are available on the University website at: http://www.uwo.ca/univsec/handbook/.

 

Texts: The textbook for this course is:

 

Agresti, Alan and B. Finlay, 1997. Statistical Methods for the Social Sciences, 3rd edition. Upper Saddle River: Prentice-Hall.

 

The text will be available in the University bookstore.  It may be possible to find used copies of the text, but students must ensure that the book they have is the third edition.  While students are required to follow the readings in the text, it is often helpful to consult other statistics texts, which may present the same material in a somewhat different way.

 

Evaluation:  There will be two exams, a midterm and a final exam, each worth 30% of the final mark.  There will also be four assignments, each worth 10%.  

 

Assignments:  The four assignments will be aimed at providing practical experience using computers to perform statistical analysis.  The emphasis will be on demonstrating an understanding of the ideas behind the analysis.  Students are free to use the SAS or SPSS packages available on the SSC network.  However, examples in class will use SPSS. 


 

 

Date

Topic

Reading (Agresti and Finlay)  and Notes

Sept 9 & Sept 11

Review: frequency distributions,  measures of central tendency and dispersion, probability distributions

Chapters 1- 4

Sept 16 (Mon)

Review: Point and interval estimation, Tests of significance

Chapters 5 & 6

Sept 18 (Wed)

Computer Lab: (re-) Introduction to Statistical Computing Packages

Computer Lab

Sept 23 & Sept 25

Large and small sample tests for differences between means

Chapter 7

Sept 30  (Mon)

One-Way Analysis of Variance

Chapter 12.1, 12.2

Oct 2 (Wed)

Bivariate analysis: chi-square test of independence

Chapter 8

Oct 7 & 9

Chi-Square test (cont’d), Review of Simple Regression and Correlation

Chapter 8 & 9

Assignment 1 Due Oct 7

Oct 14 (Mon)

No class (Thanksgiving)

 

Oct 16 (Wed)

Simple Regression and Correlation

Chapter 9

Oct 21 (Mon)

Mid-Term Test

 

Oct 23 (Wed)

Causality, Multiple regression and Correlation

Chapter 10 & 11

Assignment 2 Due Oct 23

Oct 28 & 30

Multiple Regression and Correlation

Chapter 11

Nov 4 & 6

Multiple Regression and Correlation

Chapter 11

Nov 11 & 13

ANOVA and ANCOVA

Chapters 12 & 13

Assignment 3 Due Nov 13

Nov 18 & 20

Model building & Analysis of Assumptions

Chapter 14

Nov 25 & 27

Path analysis

Chapter 16

Dec 2 & Dec 4

Review

Assignment 4 due Dec 4