POLITICAL DATA ANALYSIS
University of Ilinois at Chicago
Fall, 1999
Instructor: Lisa Schmit                         Political Science 201 - Tues &Thurs 1-2:15
Office: B 104                                   	  Phone: 996-7742
E-mail: lschmil@uic.edu                      http://www2.uic.edu/~lschmil/
Official Office Hours: Tues & Thurs 10:30-12:30 (I am usually around-feel free to stop by)
The purpose of this class is to help you understand and use numbers to describe social
phenomena. In this course, you will be introduced to statistical techniques that are essential to data analysis in the social sciences. Data analysis involves examining, summarizing, and drawing
conclusions from data. The best way to learn about data analysis is to actually do it. The study of
statistics is based on sophisticated mathematical principles and logic which may cause some
apprehension in some of you. Some of you may feel that you are not "good" at math, or do not have a sufficient mathematical background to understands statistics. You do not have to be a math
"whiz" to understand and use statistical methods. The only mathematical requirement for this class is the ability to add, subtract, multiply and divide.
Text:
Freund, John and Benjamin Perles. 1999. Statistics: A First Course. 7th ed. Prentice Hall.
Course Requirements:
*Midterm exam 25%
*Final exam   25%
*"Homework   50%
Grading scale: 90-100%=A
80-89%=B
70-79%=C
60-69%=^
below 60%=F
As you can see, homework will account for 1/2 of your grade. Therefore, it is imperative that you
complete your homework assignments and hand them in ON TIME. There will be a five point
deduction per day for late assignments.   I will usually hand out homework assignments on
Thursday and we will go over them on Tuesday before moving on to the next subject. Throughout
the semester, you will be required to perform various computations in SPSS using the data given
in class. Most of the assignments will use data are from the American National Election Studies for 1994. It contains various measures of respondents characteristics, views and voting behavior. By the end of the semester, we will produce a statistical model which predicts voting behavior in the House election of 1994-the Republican takeover!!!! We will predict the likelihood of a respondent voting Democratic or the likelihood of a respondent voting Republican. So throughout the class, we will be exploring various statistical methods that will attempt to explain why individuals vote the way they do. Don't fret. We will go step by step and as slow as necessary. I want you to really learn how to perform a variety of statistical methods. YOU WILL!!!!  There are computers in the basement of BSB, on the 4th floor in the sociology department and in other buildings throughout the campus. In addition to computer assignments, you will be required to read from your textbook. Don't freak out over the large number of pages to read. Many of the pages include graphs, pictures, exercises and examples that we will go over in class.
Attendance: Your attendance at all class sessions are expected. If for some unforeseen reason you miss a class, it is your responsibility to get class notes from a friend. Notes will not be provided by the instructor. The lack of attendance may adversely affect your grade.

	
	
	homework: read
	
wkl
	Aug24
	go over syllabus
	chl

	26
	Intro to Stats /Go over variables
	ch2
	
wk2
	31
	Frequency distributions/ Graphs

	Sept 2
	Computer Lab
	ch3
	
wk3
	7
	Descriptive Statistics

	9
	Standard deviation /Variance

wk4
	14
	LAB

	16
	Crosstabs /percentiles

wk5
	21
	LAB
	4,5,6
	
wk6
	28
	Possibilities and Probabilities

	30
	Probability

wk7
	Oct5
	Probability

	7
	Review

wk8
	12
	MIDTERM

	14
	Go over Exam
	ch7
	
wk9
	19
	Normal Distribution
	ch8

	21
	Sampling and Sampling Distributions
	ch9
	
Wkl0
	26,28
	problems with Estimation
	chIO
	
wkll
	Nov2
	Tests Concerning the Mean
	chll

	4
	Tests based on Count Data

wkl2
	9.11
	Analysis of Variance

wkl3
	16
	LAB
	chl2

	18
	Correlations

wkl4
	23
	Regression Analysis

	25
	Regression Analysis

wk 15
	30
	LAB

	Dec 2
	REVIEW

	Dec 6
	FINAL EXAM 3:30-5:30