Professor: Rachel A. Rosenfeld                                                                                         TA: Natalia Deeb-Sossa
Office: 155/ 264 Hamilton Hall                                                                                          Office: 218 Hamilton Hall
Phone: 962-1008/ 2-1272 (o)/967-6845 (h)                                                                      Email: deebsoss@email.unc.edu
Email: rachel_rosenfeld@unc.edu                                                                                      Office hours: 11-12:15 Th. and by appointment
Office hours: 11:15-12:15 T,
    1-2 Th, and by appointment
 
 
 

DESCRIPTION:

This course is an introduction to descriptive statistics, exploratory data analysis, probability theory, inferential statistics, and (perhaps) matrix algebra. Its purposes are to enable you to (1) do empirical statistical work of your own (e.g., for your master's paper or other courses), (2) intelligently and critically read publications such as the American Sociological Review, (3) take the next statistics courses in the sociology graduate program, and (4) teach yourself other statistical approaches in your future work. It also introduces you to one popular software program, Stata. Even if you don't plan to do quantitative work after you finish the sociology methods/statistics sequence, understanding the theory and limits of statistical analysis is important for you, given its prevalence in sociology now.⁽¹⁾ Further, learning one software program broadens your repertoire for learning other software, even that which isn't for statistical analysis.
 

COURSEPAGE:

Check the course website frequently for notices about course scheduling and postings of assignments and answers, as well as links to data and software: www.unc.edu/~rfeld/208index.html .

Note that there is a link called "Where are we?" This gives an outline of the material as we cover it and indicates where we begin for each class.
 

BOOKS AND READINGS:

The text we will use is:

Selections from Neter, John, William Wasserman, and G.A. Whitmore, Applied Statistics, 4th edition. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1993. Pearson Custom Publishing, 2000/2001.

This is available at UNC Student Stores. The first three chapters are on reserve in the Sociology/Political Science Library (Hamilton 271). Neter et al. was used the last several years, so you may be able to borrow a copy if you prefer not to buy it. Soc. 209 uses a text by the same authors, which means you won't have to learn new notation the second half of this year.

There will also be a couple of other readings, which are on the course page behind a password. I'll give this password to you in class..
 

STATA:

Very early in the term (Aug. 23), José Sandoval from the Odum Institute for Research in Social Science will give us an introduction to Stata. That day we will meet in Manning 15 (next door to Hamilton Hall). You can find on-line help with Stata at http://www.stata.com (For examples of various procedures, click on Product Information, then on Why Stata, and then on Easy.)

The Odum Institute offers students and faculty a large number of short courses on statistical computing, qualitative data analysis, particular data sets, grant writing, and surveys. Check their schedule if you'd like to attend a Stata course. These courses are free and usually do not require registration. Some people like to get an overview of a particular software package before they begin using it, others find that courses such as those at the Odum Institute are more useful after they have had a little practice with the program. There is also a help desk in the Odum Institute computer lab.
 

DATA:

For assignments and some examples throughout the term, we will be using variables from the 1998 General Social Survey ( http://www.norc.uchicago.edu/projects/gensoc.asp ). (See also links on the course webpage.) Natalia created a Stata data set from this survey. This data set is on sociology's shared network space (under Soc208/GSS 1998) and is available at the Odum Institute (g:\datasets\norc98)..

Most students prefer to do their assignments in the Odum lab (Hamilton 228), where there are documentation and usually people around to help. The TA will hold some office hours there. Let us know, however, if you would like help downloading the data for use elsewhere.
 

REQUIREMENTS:

There will be approximately 4 assignments. These will be worth 50% of your grade. You are encouraged to collaborate with others in doing assignments, as well as to ask for help from Natalia, advanced students, people at the help desk in the Odum Institute, and me. You have the ultimate responsibility for the intellectual content of each problem set, should do your own writeup, and should be able to set up and run the Stata programs. If you have any questions about what is and is not allowed, please ask me. You are expected to get the assignments in on time. 25% of your grade will be from an in-class midterm Tuesday, October 16. The last 25% will be from an in-class, non-cumulative final Saturday, December 15, 9-11 am (the time regularly scheduled for a class in this time slot). As in all courses here, we are bound by the UNC Honor Code, http://www.unc.edu/depts/honor/honor.html .
 

BYPASSING SOC. 208:

Graduate students in sociology who feel that they have covered the material of this course elsewhere may want to skip Soc. 208, either by taking a by-pass exam this fall (please see me about this) or by going on to Soc. 209 in the spring and receiving a passing grade in that course. If you have had only an undergraduate or very applied statistics course, you should probably take Soc. 208 because it is more theoretical than most undergrad. courses.
 
 

COURSE OUTLINE

With two exceptions, the readings are from Neter et al. Readings in parentheses are optional.
 

CLASS	APPROXIMATE DATE-check "Where are we?" on-line	SUBJECT	READINGS
1	T, Aug. 21	Introduction	ch. 1
2	Th, Aug. 23	**STATA-Manning 15 (Odum Institute)
3	T, Aug. 28	Displaying data	ch. 2.1-2.5 (2.6), 2.7, Cohen (1984)/a
4	Th, Aug. 30	Measures of position, variability, and skewness	ch. 3.1-3.7 (3.8)  Appendices A.1, A.2
5	T, Sept. 4	--continued
6	Th, Sept.6	--continued
7	T, Sept. 11	-continued
8	Th, Sept. 13	Basic probability	ch. 4.1-4.5, ch. 6.1, Appendix A.3, Gould (1991)/b
9	T, Sept. 18	-continued
10	Th, Sept. 20	-continued
11	T, Sept. 25	Random variables	ch. 5.1-5.5, ch. 6.2-6.3 (6.4)
12	Th, Sept. 27	-continued
13	T, Oct. 2	-continued
14	Th, Oct. 4	-continued
15	T, Oct. 9	Discrete random variables: uniform and binomial distributions	ch. 7.1-7.2 (7.3)
16	Th, Oct. 11	--continued, review
17	T, Oct. 16	**MIDTERM
	Th, Oct. 18	**NO CLASS-FALL BREAK
18	T, Oct. 23	Continuous random variables: uniform and normal distribution	ch. 8.1-8.2 (8.3, 8.4)
19	Th, Oct. 25	Statistical sampling	ch. 9.1-9.5
20	T, Oct. 30	Point estimation and sampling distributions: sample mean	ch. 10.1-10.6 (10.7)
21	Th, Nov. 1	--continued
22	T, Nov. 6	Interval estimation: population mean	ch. 11.1-11.3 (11.4, 11.5,11.6) (Appendix B.2)
23	Th, Nov. 8	-continued
24	T, Nov. 13	Hypothesis testing: population mean	ch. 12.1-12.6 (12.7) (ch. 13)
25	Th, Nov. 15	--continued
26	T, Nov. 20	Comparison of two populations	ch. 14.1-14.3, 14.5 (Appendices B.1, B.3, B.4)
	Th, Nov. 22	**NO CLASS-THANKSGIVING
27	T, Nov. 27	--continued
28	Th, Nov. 29	Simple linear regression	ch. 18.1-18.8
29	T, Dec. 4	--continued
30	Th, Dec. 6	Simple linear regression: inference	ch. 19.1, 19.3-19.5, 19.8 (read 19.6-19.7, but don't worry about formulae)
	possible extra topics	Multiple regression and matrix algebra	ch. 20.1-20.6 (20.11, 20.13), handout on matrix algebra

Sat, Dec. 15

**FINAL, 9-11 am

/a Cohen, Bernard I. 1984. "Florence Nightingale." Scientific American 250 (March):128-37.

/b Gould, Stephen J. 1991. "The median isn't the message." Pp. 473-78 in Bully for Brontosaurus, Norton.

1. If you are interested in one account of how statistics got incorporated into the social sciences at the turn of the century, see Charles Camic and Yu Xie, 1994, "The statistical turn in American social sciences: Columbia University 1890-1915." American Sociological Review 59:773-805.