Political Science 104 Wednesday, November 18

1. Political Science 104 Wednesday, November 18 • Agenda • Office Hours • Assignment #5 • Discussion on the Final • Readings/Lecture Recap • Guide to the Paper • Working our Way Through Assignment #6 • Assigned Readings • Tufte, Visual and Statistical Thinking • Shively, Craft, Ch. 10 • Salkind, Statistics, Ch. 15 • Sverson, “What’s For Dinner?”

2. Two Brief Announcements: Professor John Woolley (American Presidency) is holding a talk for undergraduates tomorrow night (8pm) at the Faculty Club. The topic is “Does Barack Obama Prove Our Democracy Works?” There will be free food. The UCDC Program is accepting applications for Spring 2008. The application is due on January 15, 2009.

3. Office Hours • There is no section next Wednesday, November 26! Enjoy the Thanksgiving Weekend and try to get where you’re going early! • Assignment #6 is due on Tuesday 11/25. Because there’s no section next week, I’m offering extra office hours in anticipation for this assignment. Office hours are cancelled on Wednesday 11/26: • Regular Office Hours: • Today 11/19: 1pm-2pm; 3-5pm • Added Office Hours: • Thursday 11/20: 12:15pm-3pm • Optional Lab Session: • Monday 11/24: 3pm-5pm in Ellison LSIT Lab (2626) • I have a class in 2626 Ellison from 5-6:20. I will meet with anyone who shows up at Ellison 2626 at 6:20. • We can also SCHEDULE office hours at your convenience and I will answer questions on email (marioguerrero@umail.ucsb.edu), AIM (SuperMario917) and gchat (mariog).

4. Assignment #5 This assignment was fantastic! Little to no complaints… Just remember: If you’re ever asked to come up with a hypothesis and how you would test that hypothesis on a test… you should be as detailed as possible. So, introduce the hypothesis (which you all did), extract concepts, then extract variables. Testing has to do with variables, so you need to go this far when you’re asked to test a hypothesis.

5. Discussion on the Final • We only have one more section left after today!!! And that’s in Week 10, exactly eight days before the final. • Do you guys want to do the midterm summaries again? Were they helpful? Did you guys use them? Can you suggest an alternative if we choose not to do this? • I will pass out an example question for the final. This is the ultimate example of “application” that can be used on the final. Please come prepared to talk about this in section in two weeks. • We will do final Jeopardy! However, this time, I’ll send out an email with the questions that appear on the final Jeopardy. We’ll be playing for extra credit points again, so this will make it much more competitive and this way you guys can come prepared. • Is there any other ideas that you guys have for our last section? Should I prepare some other stuff for you guys?

6. Discussion on the Final • We only have one more section left after today!!! And that’s in Week 10, exactly eight days before the final. • Do you guys want to do the midterm summaries again? Were they helpful? Did you guys use them? Can you suggest an alternative if we choose not to do this? • I will pass out an example question for the final. This is the ultimate example of “application” that can be used on the final. Please come prepared to talk about this in section in two weeks. • We will do final Jeopardy! However, this time, I’ll send out an email with the questions that appear on the final Jeopardy. We’ll be playing for extra credit points again, so this will make it much more competitive and this way you guys can come prepared. • Is there any other ideas that you guys have for our last section? Should I prepare some other stuff for you guys?

7. Lecture Recap • What did we do yesterday? • We just simply REVIEWED the different tests we’ve done by hand in lecture. Delta Tells the difference between expected and observed. Only with a 2x2 table. Expected Value = Row x Column _ # of Observations Yule’s Q How much of our dependent variable is being explained by independent variable. Only with a 2x2 table. Q = (B*C) – (A*D) (B*C) + (A*D) Gamma How much of our dependent variable is being explained by independent variable. Can use more than a 2x2 table. SPSS can calculate this. You won’t be expected to calculate this by hand. Chi-Square Tells the difference between expected and observed. Can use more than a 2x2 table. SPSS can calculate this. You won’t be expected to calculate this by hand.

8. Readings -- Tufte • I imagine that Weatherford wants to have a discussion on Tufte tomorrow, so be sure to read it for lecture. • What are we talking about in these two articles? • The first half deals with the cholera outbreak in London and how they used maps and graphs to figure out where the cholera outbreak came from. • The second half deals with the O-rings on the Challenger shuttle and how the failure was basically attributed to graphs. • I posted some information about this on the website.

9. Guide to the Paper • Look on the Website for the ALL NEW! Guide to the Paper. • If you are ever, ever lost on the paper or this next assignment, just download this file and you should be able to get yourself back on track. This is as detailed as I can get for you guys. Assignment #6 • Step-by-Step Approach • Computing New Variables • Controlling for Variables • Outputs: Existence, Strength, Direction

10. Assignment #6 • Choose one of the testable hypotheses formulated in Assignment 4. Start with a two or three variable relationship. Complexity comes later. You’ll need to carry out transformations if your data calls for it. • Summarize the information in the data set about each variable, using appropriate univariate statistics and perhaps graphical presentations. Describe the univariate distributions in a few sentences or pargaraphs. • We look at univariate statistics for spread and to see what level of measurement we use. Include the mean, median, mode, std. deviation, range, variation table for spread. Say a couple of things about the spread. Also look at the frequency tables (you don’t need to include them), to see what level of measurement your variables are at. • 2. Using cross-tabulation (For variables with relatively few categories) or a scatterplot (for continuous variables or ones with many categories), assess the relationship between the two variables. In a paragraph or two, draw some preliminary conclusions about the existence, direction and strength of your relationship.

11. We’re looking at existence, strength, and direction of these tests.

12. Assignment #6, Continued 3. State and discuss what you currently believe is the most likely explanation or interpretation of the relationship between your independent and dependent variables, and describe the model you need to estimate to test whether this interpretation is supported by the data. (This will involve specifying the appropriate null hypothesis for your research hypothesis.) This section is asking you to come up with CONTROLS. Here’s what a control variable is: In this sense, you have to establish what your main hypothesis is: High levels of personal wealth means that people will participate more. The null hypothesis is the opposite of your main hypothesis: Levels of personal wealth have no effect on political participation. IF the control variable makes this relationship spurious (meaning that the above diagram is true), then you accept your null. How do you control??? In crosstabulations and regressions! Political Participation (Dependent Variable) Personal Wealth (Independent Variable) Education (Control Variable)

13. Assignment #6, Continued 3. Sketch out at least three alternative hypotheses to your expected interpreation, and briefly discuss how you would go about testing these. These should involve primarily challenges to the interal or external validity of your causal explanation (for instance, potential sources of “spurious correlation,” or intervening or antecedent variables) – that is, they should be alternative theories that you could test with data. This section asks you to think of three different relationships (You can change the dependent, independent OR BOTH variables on your original relationship). You’re testing variations of your original hypothesis. So use your creativity here. If you want to test the control variables effects on your dependent variable, you could actually do that, or you could also come up with completely new relationships. So just develop the hypotheses here: High levels of education effects political participation. 4. Discuss what statistical methods you will use to test your causal hypothesis formally. Now that you’ve specified three new hypothesis, how would you test these. You don’t have to do this for the assignment, but you do have to do it for the paper. This is basically outlining what you would do for these new hypotheses with the same process in #1 and #2 of this assignment.

14. Assignment #6, Continued How far should I go? Should I write my whole paper? I advise you to write as much of your paper as possible. At minimum, you’ll only be graded on these five questions and how well you carry them out. However, this is your last chance to get written comments on the paper. If you write a full draft of your paper, I can read it and return comments to you the following Tuesday. You then have a two-day turnaround to revise the comments, which is ample time if you’re turning in a draft. If you’re just turning in bare bones, you might have a hard time integrating my comments into the work you might have done in that week. Think about this strategically. You can only benefit from having me read as a complete of a draft as possible. You don’t have to turn in a complete draft. I will look at graphs, outlines, and bullet-pointed statements. You can fill in details later.