817.272.2991

PO Box 19539

University of Texas at Arlington

Arlington, TX 76019

Professor Story's Home Page

POLS 3310 and 5310

Professor Dale Story

Summer 2011

449 University Hall

story@uta.edu

Summer 2011 Office Hours (by appointment):  5:30-6pm, MW

Announcements

• I will be in South America until Sunday, June 12 conducting research on human rights in Argentina and Chile.  Thus, we will not have class on June 6 and June 8.  We will be able to finish all the requisite material before the First Exam on June 29.  During the week of June 6, you should read the syllabus and become familiar with all appropriate policies (see below).  You should also read the first three chapters in both of your texts. Finally, I want you to view the folllowing video:  http://www.ted.com/talks/bruce_bueno_de_mesquita_predicts_iran_s_future.html.  We will have class beginning Monday, June 13.

• Unless you select otherwise, for undergraduate students (non-Honors) the exams will be objective tests (multiple choice questions).  Example:  What is a difficulty in predicting political behavior—followed by 4-5 answers and you select the correct answer.  For problem questions, you will need to work the problem and find the correct answer—than select the correct answer from a list of 4-6 answers.  You will need the 882-E form and a #2 pencil.  Graduate students and Honors students will take an “essay” exam.  Example question:  Explain fully the four characteristics of behavioralism.  For problem questions, you will need to show all your work neatly and in an organized fashion.  You will need a blue book.Finally, any student has the option of taking the essay exams.  If you prefer the essay exams (all three exams must be the same), you need to email me by 5pm, Tuesday, June 28.

• All students need to bring a basic calculator (+, -, /, *, and sqrt) to class every day.

• All students are strongly recommended to:

  • Use computers connected to the UTA network when downloading data from the ICPSR.

  • Use SPSS in the University Hall computer lab.

Hand-outs

• Syllabus

• Review Questions for Test One

• Formulas for Test Two

• Review Questions for Test Two

• Formulas for Test Three

• Review Questions for Test Three

• Statistical Project

Statistical Research Project (due by the beginning of class on the day of the final exam)

Topics with Relevant Links

• Politics as Science

• Graphs, etc. I
• Graphs, etc. II
• Research Design
• Measurement
• Survey Research
  • Normal Curve
    • http://richardbowles.tripod.com/maths/normdist/normdist.htm
    • http://www.statsoft.com/textbook/distribution-tables/
    • http://www.intmath.com/Counting-probability/14_Normal-probability-distribution.php
  • Challenges posed by cell phones
  • Other problems of polling
• Data Sets, SPSS (Variable Labels, Value Labels, Missing Values, Recode, Dichotomize, open a .por file in SPSS, save data as .sav file), Download Election Studies, Administer Survey Instrument
• Univariate Statistics
  • DP Index.  Other sources: http://faculty.chass.ncsu.edu/garson/PA765/standard.htm.
  • Frequencies
  • Measures of Central Tendency
  • Measures of Dispersion (Variance--previously covered).  Other sources:  http://davidmlane.com/hyperstat/A16252.html
  • Types of Distribution:  Skewness and Kurtosis
  • Z Scores.  Other sources:  http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:j3W8mF06V5UJ:education.tamuk.edu/kfmns00/EDLD6333/6333_08_%2520ZScores.ppt+z+scores+explained&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us, http://www.measuringusability.com/zcalc.htm.
• Data Sets, SPSS (Variable Labels, Value Labels, Missing Values, Recode, Dichotomize, open a .por file in SPSS, save data as .sav file), Download Election Studies, Administer Survey Instrument

• Bivariate Statistics:

  • Crosstabs (column percentages)--SPSS for Crosstabs

  • Hypothesis Testing (Chi Square)--SPSS for Chi Square

    • Calculating Chi Square

      • http://math.hws.edu/javamath/ryan/ChiSquare.html

      • http://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/qmss/chi_intro.html

      • The significance level is a function of: (1) the Chi Square statistic and (2) the degrees of freedom (which in turn are a function of the number of cells or in some instances the number of cases or groups).  The correspondence of the Chi Square statistic, the degrees of freedom, and the significance level can be found in tables for the Distribution of the Chi Square statistic (in N-N, it is Appendix H, pp. 513-514).

      • "We then compare the value calculated [Chi Square] ...  to a standard set of tables."

      • f_e = [(row total)(column total)]/n

  • Lambda, Gamma--SPSS for Lambda, Gamma--http://www.csulb.edu/~msaintg/ppa696/696bivar.htm (see different topics, especially Nominal Measures of Association and Ordinal Measures of Association)

  • Honors and Graduate students should have already located and downloaded their data set.  Their additional project should be completely independent--and should equal the regular statistical project in "breadth and depth."

  • Correlation Coefficient, Regression--SPSS for Correlation Coefficient, Regression

• Multi-variate Statistics

Articles, Information, Links, et cetera

SPSS Help

Data Sets

Misc.

• 10 variables that may influence Sunday's race for the Cup title (NASCAR and Statistics).

• Does pitches per plate appearance affect slugging percentages (Basball and Statistics--Sabermetrics--www.sabr.org) 

Recommended:

• Math 1302 and 1308.  This course [3310] involved a high level of familiarity with statistics.  I had never taken a statistics course prior to this class.  Thus it hurt me tremendously.  However, after studying statistics and understanding the concepts, I made a B.

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Department of Political Science

PO Box 19539

Arlington, Texas 76019

Phone 817.272.2991

Fax 817.272.2525