The Workshop in Methods (WIM) was created in 2009 with the mission of providing introductory education and training in sophisticated research methods to graduate students and faculty in the social sciences at Indiana University. The initial idea for WIM began with Scott Long, who discussed his vision with Dr. William Alex Pridemore. Pridemore created WIM and directed the series until 2013.
Browse workshops from the 2010-2011 academic year below. All of the workshop videos have also been compiled in a playlist on Media Collections Online.
Friday, September 3, 2010
Principles of Workflow in Data Analysis
Dr. J. Scott Long
2:30-4:30pm, Woodburn Hall 200
The workflow of data analysis encompasses the entire process of scientific research: Planning, documenting, and organizing your work; creating, labeling, naming, and verifying variables; performing and presenting statistical analyses; preserving your work; and (perhaps, most important) producing replicable results. Most of our work in statistics classes focuses on estimating and interpreting models. In most “real world” research projects, these activities involve less than 10% of the total work. Professor Long’s talk is about the other 90% of the work. An efficient workflow saves time, introduces greater reliability into the steps of the analysis, and generates replicable results. A recent entry on a blog discussing Professor Long’s recent book, The Workflow of Data Analysis Using Stata, claimed: “The publication of [this book] may even reduce Indiana’s comparative advantage of producing hotshot quant PhDs now that grad students elsewhere can vicariously benefit from this important aspect of the training there.” Can you afford to miss this talk?
Dr. Long is Distinguished Professor and Chancellor's Professor of Sociology and Statistics at Indiana University.
Materials available by email (event flyer, presentation slides)
Video (Media Collections Online)
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Introduction to Stata Workshop
Joseph D. Wolfe
10:00am-2:00pm, Library 402
Stata is a widely used, comprehensive software package for data analysis, data management, and publication-quality graphics. This 4-hour workshop will introduce a range of Stata's capabilities, from basic features to more complicated commands. Instruction will be "hands-on,” i.e., the instructor and the attendees will work with Stata together. There are also class exercises that allow attendees to explore Stata on their own.
No prior knowledge of Stata is assumed. Some prior knowledge of basic statistics and linear models is helpful but not required.
This is a workshop is co-sponsored by the Department of Statistics and the Indiana Statistical Consulting Center (ISCC).
J.D. Wolfe is a graduate student in the sociology department at Indiana University.
Materials available by email [2011 version] (presentation slides, hands-on exercise files)
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Exploratory Data Analysis
Dr. Karen Kafadar
4:00-6:00pm, Woodburn Hall 200
When faced with data from various sources, of various types, what do the data tell us, what questions can be asked, and what clues can we find in the data to further our understanding? Unlike traditional "confirmatory" statistics that emphasizes parameter estimation from parametric models and hypothesis tests on their significance, exploratory data analysis takes a different approach to analyzing data, one that avoids any pre-conceived model that the data must fit and allows the data to suggest the model. EDA tools reveal patterns in the data given the inevitability of violation of traditional assumptions (e.g., no outliers or missing values, Gaussian distributions, independence, etc.). This session introduces some of these tools and illustrates their value, including displays for univariate data, displays for multivariate data, checking the shape of distributions, robust-resistant two-way analyses, fitting skewed/heavy-tailed distributions, and assessing uncertainty. The tools will be illustrated using real data from various fields.
Dr. Kafadaris James H. Rudy Professor of Statistics and Physics at Indiana University. Her research focuses on exploratory data analysis, robust methods, characterization of uncertainty in quantitative studies, and analysis of experimental data in the physical, chemical, biological, and engineering sciences. She has served as Chair of an NAS Committee on Applied and Theoretic Statistics and on previous NAS committees. She is an elected fellow of the American Statistical Association and the International Statistical Institute, and has authored over 80 journal articles and book chapters. She holds B.S. and M.S. degrees from Stanford and a Ph.D. in statistics from Princeton University.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Introduction to R Workshop
Leslie Blaha
1:00-5:00pm, Library 402
Co-sponsored by the Department of Statistics and the Indiana Statistical Consulting Center.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Introduction to SAS: Workshop for Beginners
Stephanie Dickinson
2:00-4:00pm, Library 402
Co-sponsored by the Department of Statistics and the Indiana Statistical Consulting Center.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Introduction to Program Evaluation
Dr. Mindy Hightower King
9:30-11:30am, Woodburn Hall 200
Have you ever been asked to develop an evaluation for a program or intervention and felt like you were flying by the seat of your pants? If so, this workshop is for you. Dr. Mindy Hightower King, from the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy, will demonstrate how to conceptualize basic evaluation designs, highlighting the distinctions between “formative” and “summative” evaluation and the use of common evaluation tools such as logic models, stakeholder interest matrices, and surveys. A brief overview of “performance measurement” will be provided in order to familiarize participants with the similarities and differences between program evaluation and performance measurement.
Dr. Hightower King holds a faculty research appointment in the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy in the School of Education where she designs and manages evaluation projects for a variety of education and human services organizations. Her work focuses primarily on the evaluation of collaborative school wellness initiatives and applied educational programs.
Materials available by email (event flyer, presentation slides)
Video (Media Collections Online)
Friday, September 24, 2010
Introduction to SAS: Next Steps
Stephanie Dickinson
2:00-4:00pm, Library 402
Co-sponsored by the Department of Statistics and the Indiana Statistical Consulting Center.
Friday, October 1, 2010
The Media as an Asset to the Social Scientist
Chuck Carney, Steve Hinnefeld, Tracy James, and Brian Powell
2:00-4:00pm, Woodburn Hall 200
Whether by choice or necessity, social scientists are often called upon to relate their research findings to the public. Many of us have had negative experiences doing so, however, or we simply feel uncomfortable trying to translate our research into understandable language for non-experts. This panel on social science and the media will introduce you to strategies that will allow you to make the media an asset. First, attendees will be encouraged to distill their academic work so they can more effectively communicate with non-scientists. Attendees will also learn (1) how to prepare for print and broadcast interviews, (2) how to minimize the possibility of journalist error, and (3) what they can do to prevent journalists from taking advantage of them. Symposium speakers will explain why working with the media is beneficial to their departments, schools, institutions, and an American public that lacks literacy in our various areas of expertise. Lastly, speakers will discuss how IU scholars, with or without public relations assistance, can use social media to more effectively communicate directly with the public.
Chuck Carney, Director of Communications and Media Relations at the IU School of Education, has more than twenty years in journalism as an anchor/reporter in commercial television, a news director for public television, and taught television reporting and journalism, including at IU. He currently advises faculty and staff on media strategy, writes news releases and other informational material, and coordinates School of Education interactions with the media.
Steve Hinnefeld is a writer and editor with the IU Office of University Communications. His beat includes SPEA, law, political science, history and several other areas. He spent more than 25 years as a newspaper reporter, primarily with the Bloomington Herald-Times. In December 2009, he traveled to Stockholm to write about and provide media assistance to IU Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrom.
Tracy James is a writer and editor with the Office of University Communications. Her beat includes sociology, psychological and brain sciences, gender studies, the Kinsey Institute, and HPER. She worked for a daily newspaper for 11 years before coming to IU in 2004 and she also worked for a wire service, weekly newspaper and a string of suburban newspapers.
Brian Powell is James H. Rudy Professor of Sociology. He will discuss working with the media from a professor's point of view, drawing from his experiences talking with a wide range of reporters and more recently, his whirlwind encounter with national media exposure.
Materials available by email (event flyer, presentation slides, handouts)
Video (Media Collections Online)
Friday, October 15, 2010
Mathematica Presentation
12:00-1:00pm, Woodburn Hall 200 CANCELLED
Come hear a brief presentation about Mathematica software and how it can aid you in your social science research. Hosted by Dr. Armando Razo (IU Political Science).
Friday, October 22, 2010
Effectively Using Graphs to Learn from and Present Your Data
Dr. William G. Jacoby
2:00-4:00pm, Woodburn Hall 200
These lectures cover methods for obtaining visual displays of quantitative information. They discuss ways to, quite literally, look at data. This is important because graphical representations avoid some of the restrictive assumptions and simplistic models that are often encountered in empirical analyses. These methods are very useful in the social sciences, where the robustness characteristics of traditional statistical techniques often are pushed to their limits. The lectures focus primarily on introductory concepts and graphical displays for univariate data, then move on to graphs for bivariate, multivariate, and categorical data. The main objective is to help you learn to construct a pictorial abstraction that highlights the salient aspects of your data without distorting any features or imposing undue assumptions.
Dr. Jacoby is Professor of Political Science at Michigan State University. He is also a Research Scientist at the University of Michigan and Director of the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) Summer Program in Quantitative Methods.
Materials available by email (event flyer, presentation slides, handouts)
Friday, November 5, 2010
Invisible Populations and Data Collection: Issues, Challenges, and Strategies
Dr. Roddrick A. Colvin
2:00-4:00pm, Woodburn Hall 200
This presentation will address issues and challenges that often arise when collecting data from 'invisible' populations, including determining the factors that rendered a population invisible, understanding the relationship between invisibility and vulnerability, and collaborating with members and/or allies of the population. The presentation will also include a discussion of research strategies that have been employed when collecting data, and the use of technology to improve the quality of data obtained.
Dr. Colvin is an associate professor in the Department of Public Management at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. In addition to his interests in employment policy, he is also interested in gay rights, hate crimes, and international human rights policies. He currently teaches courses in public administration, human resource management, and policy analysis.
Materials available by email (event flyer, presentation slides)
Video (Media Collections Online)
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Laboratory Experiments in the Social Sciences: An Introduction
Dr. Stephen Benard
4:30-6:30pm, Indiana Memorial Union Persimmon Room
In the past few decades, laboratory experiments have gained popularity in a number of social science disciplines outside of psychology, including economics, political science, and sociology. In part, this is due to the usefulness of laboratory experiments for addressing questions about causality. This workshop offers an introduction to the theory and practice of designing and conducting laboratory experiments, oriented towards those with little or no prior experience. The presentation will also address motivations for conducting experimental research, the relationship between theory, experiments, and the “real world,” and the ethics of experiments.
Dr. Benard is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Indiana University. His research and teaching interests include group conflict and cooperation, social networks, gender, and inequality. His recent work has been published in the American Journal of Sociology, Gender & Society, Hastings Law Journal, and Journal of Mathematical Sociology. He also teaches the Sociology Department’s graduate experimental methods course. He received his Ph.D. in 2008 from Cornell University.
Materials available by email (event flyer, presentation slides)
Friday, December 3, 2010
Time Series Analysis: Method and Substance
Introductory Workshop on Time Series Analysis
Dr. Sarah McLaughlin Mitchell
8:30-11:30am, Woodburn Hall 200
This is the first of two presentations on time series analysis. This first (morning) workshop introduces time series methods and their utility for examining social science data. The second (afternoon) presentation will discuss research that employs time series methods to answer a substantive question of interest to social science scholars. The morning workshop provides an introduction to methods of time series analysis. Some topics that will be covered include stationarity, ARIMA models, autoregressive distributed lag (ADL) models, error correction models, GARCH models, and vector autoregression (VAR) models.
Dr. Mitchell is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Iowa. She is Co-Director of the Issue Correlates of War Project and an Associate Editor of Foreign Policy Analysis. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science at Michigan State University in 1997. She is coauthor of Domestic Law Goes Global: Legal Traditions and International Courts (Cambridge University Press, 2011), she has edited three special journal issues, and she has published two dozen journal articles and book chapters. She is the recipient of four major research awards from the National Science Foundation. Her areas of expertise include international conflict, international organizations, and conflict management. Dr. Mitchell also taught the time series class this summer at the ICPSR summer program.
Materials available by email (event flyer, presentation slides)
Friday, December 3, 2010
What is the Average Annual Crime Rate in the US?
Dr. David McDowall
2:00-4:00pm, Woodburn Hall 200
This is the second of two presentations on time series analysis. The morning workshop introduced time series methods and their utility for examining social science data. This afternoon workshop will discuss research that employs time series methods to answer a substantive question of interest to social science scholars, namely the connection between theories of crime rate change and observable characteristics of US crime rate trends. It focuses in particular on theoretical efforts to explain how the levels or means of serious crimes fluctuate over time. Although not always formulated in a way consistent with time series concepts, existing explanations generally yield clear predictions about how rates should behave. Empirical methods can then help adjudicate between theories, and the talk presents results from recent analyses of major national crime rates. More generally, the talk argues for a strategy that exploits broad stylized facts about crime rate variations to help guide and discipline theoretical development.
David McDowall is Professor in the School of Criminal Justice, University at Albany, SUNY. He teaches quantitative methods in the School’s graduate program. He is past editor of the Journal of Quantitative Criminology. With Richard McCleary, Errol Meidinger, and Richard Hay, he coauthored the Sage green book, Interrupted Time Series Analysis. Much of his research has examined issues related to the social distribution of criminal violence, and most recently he has been engaged in studying patterns in U.S. crime rate trends. Dr. McDowall is a Fellow of the American Society of Criminology.
Materials available by email (event flyer, presentation slides)