Download my Spring 2024 Syllabus

Course Description

This course introduces students to applications of multivariate statistical procedures used by scientists and practitioners. The course will focus on both theoretical and practical uses of statistics. The student completing this course will have a greater understanding of causal inference, technical knowledge of multivariate statistics, and competency with the software used to estimate them. They will be able to apply this knowledge when reading research articles and conceptualizing statistical analyses for future research projects. Further, the course will develop students’ skills as academicians by increasing their capability of executing rigorous quantitative research.

Course Schedule

Week 1: Introductions, Replication, and Publication (1/9) (Slides)

• King, Gary. (1995). “Replication, Replication.” PS: Political Science and Politics 28: 4440-452. 
• King, Gary. (2006). “Publication, Publication.” PS: Political Science and Politics 39: 119-125. 
• Review Huntington-Klein Chapters 1-4.

Week 2: Snow Day (1/16)

• Campus was closed due to snow. Play around with R on Posit.Cloud.

Week 3: Let’s Learn R and Quarto (1/23) (Slides)

• Check out:
  
  • Beginners. R Studio Education.
  • Grolemund, Garrett. 2023. Getting Started with R. Posit Support. December 11.
  • Irizarry, Rafael A. Introduction to Data Science. Chapters 1-11.
  • Quarto Tutorials.

Week 4: Let’s Learn Causal Inference (1/30) (Slides)

• Huntington-Klein Chapters 5-11.

Week 5: OLS Review (2/6) (Slides)

• Huntington-Klein Chapter 13.
• Jenkins-Smith et al. Chapters 7-15.
• Another good read on residual diagnostics
• Example Paper: Choi, Cheon Geun and Sang Ok Choi. 2012. “Collaborative Partnerships and Crime in Disorganized Communities.” Public Administration Review 72(2): 228-239.
• Example Paper: George, Bert, Gerhard Hammerschmid, and Steven Van de Walle. 2019. “Institutions or Contingencies? A Cross-Country Analysis of Management Tool Use by Public Sector Executives.” Public Administration Review 9(3): 330-342.
• Submit replication paper and extension proposal

Week 6: Hierarchical Linear Modeling (2/13) (Slides)

• Field, Miles, and Field. “Multilevel Linear Models.” Discovering Statistics Using R. Chapter 19. 
• OLS Exercise Due (See Posit Cloud)
• Example Paper: Esteve, Marc, Carlos Losada, Christian Schuster, and Adria Albareda. 2017. “The Effects of Doing More with Less in the Public Sector: Evidence from a Large-Scale Survey.” Public Administration Review 77(4): 544-553.
• Example Paper: Hoang, Trang, Jiwon Suh, and Meghna Sabharwal. 2022. “Beyond a Numbers Game? Impact of Diversity and Inclusion on the Perception of Organizational Justice.” Public Administration Review. Early View.

Week 7: GLMs: Dichotomous, Count, and Ordinal DVs (2/20) (Slides)

• Jenkins-Smith. Chapter 16. 
• Date, Sachin. (2019). “An Illustrated Guide to the Poisson Regression Model.” Towards Data Science. September 21.
• IDRE. Poisson Regression.
• Greene, William H. and David A. Hensher. (2009). Modeling Ordered Choices. Chapters 1 and 2. Don’t get bogged down in the estimation strategies and their math.
• HLM Exercise Due (See Posit Cloud)
• Example Paper: Lewis, Gregory B. and Sue A. Frank. 2002. “Who Wants to Work for the Government?” Public Administration Review 62(4): 395-404.
• Example Paper: Grohs, Stephan, Christian Adam, and Christoph Knill. 2015. “Are Some Citizens More Equal than Others? Evidence from a Field Experiment.” Public Administration Review 76(1): 155-164.
• Example Paper: Tolbert, Caroline J. and Karen Mossberger. 2006. “The Effects of E-Government on Trust and Confidence in Government.” Public Administration Review 66(3): 345-369.
• Example Paper: Cooper, Christopher A., H. Gibbs Knotts, and Kathleen M. Brennan. 2008. “The Importance of Trust in Government for Public Administration: The Case of Zoning.” Public Administration Review 68(3): 459-468.

Week 8: Difference-in-Differences (2/27) (Slides)

• Huntington-Klein Chapter 18
• Zedlow, Bret and Laura Hatfield. 2019. Difference-in-Differences.
• Example Paper: Golsteyn, Bart H. H., Maria W. J. Jansen, Dave H. H. Van Kann, and Annelore M. C. Verhagen. 2020. “Does Stimulating Physical Activity Affect School Performance?” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 39(1): 64-95.
• Example Paper: Sun, Junxiu, Feng Wang, Haitao Yin, and Bing Zhang. 2019. “Money Talks: The Environmental Impact of China’s Green Credit Policy.” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 38(3): 653-680.
• Example Paper: Cawley, John, David Frisvold, Anna Hill, and David Jones. 2020. “The Impact of the Philadelphia Beverage Tax on Prices and Product Availability.” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 39(3): 605-628.
• GLMs Exercise Due (See Posit Cloud)

Week 9: Spring Break (3/5)

• No Class

Week 10: Fixed Effects (3/12) (Slides)

• Huntington-Klein Chapter 16
• Example Paper: Kim, Saerim and Andrew Sullivan. 2023. “Connecting the Composition of Collaborative Governance Structure to Community-Level Performance in Homeless Services.” Public Administration Review 83(4): 734-749.
• Example Paper: Fox, Ashley, Wenhui Feng, and Megan Reynolds. 2023. “The Effect of Administrative Burden on State Safety-Net Participation: Evidence from Food Assistance, Cash Assistance, and Medicaid.” Public Administration Review 83(2): 367-384.
• DiD Exercise Due (See Posit Cloud)

Week 11: Instrumental Variables (3/19) (Slides)

• Hutington-Klein Chapter 19
• Example paper: Otsu, Yuki. 2023. “Does Visitation in Prison Reduce Recidivism?” Journal of Policy Analysis & Management 43(1): 126-156.
• Yi, Hongtao and Ivy Liu. 2022. “Executive Leadership, Policy Tourism, and Policy Diffusion among Local Governments.” Public Administration Review 82(6): 1024-1041.
• Fixed Effects Exercise Due (See Posit Cloud)

Week 12: Regression Discontiunity (3/26) (Slides)

• Huntington-Klein Chapter 20.
• Cattaneo, Matias D., Nicolas Idrobo, and Rocio Titiunik. 2019. A Practical Introduction to Regression Discontinuity Designs: Foundations.
• Instrumental Variable Exercise Due (See Posit Cloud)
• Example Paper: Alonso, Jose M. and Rhys Andrews. 2020. “Political Ideology and Social Services Contracting: Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design.” Public Administration Review 80(5): 743-754.
• Example Paper: Kirkland, Patricia A. and Justin H. Phillips. 2020. “A Regression Discontinuity Design for Studying Divided Government.” State Politics & Policy Quarterly 20(3): 356-389.

Week 13: Course Paper (4/2)

• No class meeting, work on your final papers

Week 14:  Factor and Cluster Analyses (4/9) (Slides)

• Factor Analysis vs. PCA. AnalytixLabs. May 5, 2021.
• Field, Miles, and Field. “Exploratory Factor Analysis.” Discovering Statistics Using R. Chapter 17. 
• Eysenck Personality Scale
• Example Paper: Jilke, Sebastian, Bart Meuleman, and Steven Van de Walle. 2015. “We Need to Compare, but How? Measurement Equivalence in Comparative Public Administration.” Public Administration Review 75(1): 36-48.
• Example Paper: Eshuis, Jasper, Erik Braun, and Erik-Hans Klijn. 2013. “Place Marketing as Governance Strategy: An Assessment of Obstacles in Place Marketing and Their Effects on Attracting Target Groups.” Public Administration Review 73(3): 507-516.
• Initial Draft and Analysis Files Due

Week 15: Structural Equation Modeling (4/16) (Slides)

• Hox and Bechger. 1999. “An Introduction to Structural Equation Modeling.” Family Science Review 11: 354-373.
• Rosseel. 2012. “lavaan: An R Package for Structural Equation Modeling.” Journal of Statistical Software. 48(2): 1-36. 
• Example paper: George, Bert. 2020. “Successful Strategic Plan Implementation in Public Organizations: Connecting People, Process, and Plan (3Ps).” Public Administration Review.
• Regression Discontinuity Exercise Due (See Posit Cloud)

Week 16: Duration Models (4/23) (Slides)

• Box-Steffensmeier, Janet M. and Bradford S. Jones. (2004). Event History Modeling: A Guide for Social Scientists. Chapters 1 and 2.
• When Should You Use Non-Parametric, Parametric, and Semi-Parametric Survival Analysis. BoostedML. November 25, 2018.

Week 17: Finals Week

• Final Paper Due Tuesday April 30 by 11:59pm