Doctoral Seminar in Research Methods II

Assignments

The assignments are described below, in Professor Sorensen’s own words.

The assignments are deliberately open-ended. It is not specified what the dependent variable should be, what you are trying to explain, etc. Part of the goal of these exercises is to give you practice with working with data, estimating models and making sense of the results. In the language of 15.347, I want you to formulate a conceptual model of the data as well as a statistical model. The major constraint is that you apply the method discussed during that week’s class (e.g., count models). I will make appropriate datasets available for this purpose, but you are also allowed to use your own data sources.

At the beginning of class in each “Application” week, I ask that you hand in a brief summary of the results of your analysis. This summary should be a maximum of two pages of text, plus any tables and figures, and should discuss the results in light of the conceptual model you have developed. These assignments may be done in groups of up to two people. I will ask two or three groups each week to present the results of their work, so that we may discuss them as a class.

LEC #	TOPICS	ASSIGNMENTS
1	Introduction: Course Goals and Logistics
2	Principles: Ordinary Least Squares Regression
3	Applications: Ordinary Least Squares Regression	Presentations of worked data
4	Principles: Models for Binary Outcomes
5	Applications: Models for Binary Outcomes	Presentations of worked data
6	Principles: Models for Counts
7	Applications: Models for Counts	Presentations of worked data
8	Principles: Pooled Cross-Section/Time Series Analysis
9	Applications: Pooled Cross-Section/Time Series Analysis	Presentations of worked data
10	Principles: Basic Concepts of Event History Analysis and Data Structures
11	Principles: Descriptive Statistics for Event History Data
12	Principles: Models for Event History Data
13	Applications: Event History Analysis	Presentations of worked data
14	Review and Wrap-up