Statistical Methods for the Social Sciences I

Syllabus (PDF file)

Instructor

Alan Agresti, Department of Statistics

Office Hours

204 Griffin-Floyd Hall: Tuesday & Thursday, 1:45-3:15 pm, or by appointment

Contact Information

Phone number: (352) 273-2981, e-mail aa@stat.ufl.edu

Teaching Assistant

Eugenia Buta, 218 Griffin-Floyd, e-mail ebuta@stat.ufl.edu, office hours Wednesday and Friday, 1:45 to 3:45 pm, or by appointment.

Lecture Notes

Chapter 1(powerpoint file)

Chapter 2(powerpoint)

Chapter 3(powerpoint)

Chapter 4(powerpoint)

Chapter 5(powerpoint)

Chapter 6(powerpoint)

Review of Chapters 1-6(powerpoint)

Chapter 7(powerpoint)

Chapter 8(powerpoint)

Chapter 9(powerpoint)

Review of Chapters 6-9(powerpoint)

Chapter 10(powerpoint)

Chapter 11(powerpoint)

Review of Chapters 9-11(powerpoint)

normal, t, chi-square, F tables(pdf)

Data for exercises using software:

Some of the large data sets from the text are available in Datasets.

SPSS data file for crime data for exercise 9.25:

Statewide crime.

SPSS data file for Zagat Boston Italian restaurant ratings for exercise 9.38:

Zagat Boston data.

Useful links about software

When we cover computationally complex methods in the second half of the course, I'll show examples in class of the use of statistical software (SPSS) for the analyses. Students are encouraged to become familiar with the use of a software package, which is used more extensively in follow-up courses such as STA 6127. SPSS and SAS are available at many computing labs on campus, and your department probably has some software on its machines. Some versions of software are available to UF students and faculty (often for one-year licences) through software at UF.

SPSS:

A student version of SPSS is available but does not handle some advanced methods covered in STA 6127 (such as logistic regression) which are available in the more expensive version that sells for about $200. You can get SPSS for your home PC with a one-year license through SPSS licensing at UF. When getting started, it can be helpful to use a primer such as "SPSS for Windows Step by Step" by D. George and P. Mallery.

Instructions for reading data files into SPSS and doing regression analyses (Thanks to Brian Gridley, a former graduate student in the Political Science Department at UF, for this document, which was a class project in STA 6127).

SAS:

You can get SAS for your home PC with a one-year license through SAS licensing at UF.

The CIRCA handout "SAS for Windows" is useful for getting started. It can also be helpful to use a primer such as "The Little SAS Book: A Primer" by L. Delwiche and S. Slaughter or "SAS System for Elementary Statistical Analysis (2nd edition)" by S. Schlotzhauer and R. Littell.

R:

This is free software, popular among statisticians because of its power and flexibility but harder to learn to use. For useful information and links, see links from Dr. Brett Presnell.

Exams