1. Basic statistical knowledge and skills needed for a quantitative
research project
2. Basic Data Analysis Workshop
3. CISER's services this semester
a. New On-Campus Consulting
b. Workshops
4. Fix for SAS 8.2 Online Help and Web Services available
5. Cecilia Grace-Martin
1. Basic statistical knowledge and skills needed for a quantitative
research project
When involved in research, students learn how to apply knowledge acquired in
a statistics class to real data. Indeed, besides basic statistical knowledge,
a researcher also needs the skills to put this information into practice. Students
and researchers who have acquired the basic knowledge and skills will be able
to converse efficiently with a statistical consultant and can then get further
help by setting up individual consulting appointments (http://www.human.cornell.edu/admin/statcons/
).
Following is a list of statistical topics that students and researchers should
understand and be able to put into practice before starting to work with quantitative
data.
**Organizing data
Knowing what variables and observations are.
Coding data (including missing data).
Entering data into a spreadsheet.
**Verifying, cleaning, transforming and recoding data
using statistical software.
**Describing one variable at a time
Continuous variables: means, standard deviations, histograms,
box plots.
Categorical variables: frequencies, bar charts.
**Looking at two variables together
Two categorical variables: cross-tabulations, bar charts.
Two continuous variables: correlations, simple linear regression,
scatter plots.
One continuous and one categorical variable: comparison
of means, group box plots or bar charts.
**Simple hypothesis testing
One sample t-test, independent sample t-test, paired t-test,
one-way and two-way ANOVA.
Chi-square test of independence.
Testing of parameters in simple regression.
2. Basic Data Analysis Workshop
Researchers and students who need to acquire the basic statistical knowledge
and skills to analyze quantitative data can benefit greatly from attending a
Basic Data Analysis workshop, which we will be offering twice this semester.
We especially recommend this workshop for undergraduates working on honors theses
for which they need to perform data analysis.
The Basic Data Analysis workshop is in two parts and will be offered in the
Stone Computer Room in Mann library on Monday, February 23 and Wednesday,
February 25 from 10:00am - noon, and also on Tuesday, March 16 and Thursday,
March 18 from 1:00pm-3:00pm. Since enrollment is limited, registration is required.
Please sign up at the following website: http://www.mannlib.cornell.edu/reference/instruction/workshops.html#Data
.
3. CISER's services this semester
a. CISER (Cornell Institute for Social and Economic Research)
is offering a new on-campus consulting service to help you with data access,
data manipulation, program logic, program syntax and de-bugging, as well as
database conversions, and file transfers across computing platforms. Faculty,
staff, and graduate students who would like to consult with one of their helpdesk
consultants may now go to the circulation desk at Mann Library anytime between
10-12 and 2-4 Monday-Friday and check out a key for Room 273. That room is set
up with a video camera and ViaVideo software that makes it possible for you
to see and talk with a consultant, as well as share applications such as Terminal
Services, SAS, SPSS, Stata, and Matlab.
Instructions for using this service are posted at http://www.ciser.cornell.edu/computing/NewConsult.shtml,
and are also available in hardcopy in Room 273 at Mann.
b. CISER is offering computing workshops on SAS, Matlab, SPSS,
and Stata. Details and registration information are available at http://www.ciser.cornell.edu/ASPs/Workshops.asp.
4. Fix for SAS 8.2 Online Help and Web Services available
It has come to our attention that the SAS 8.2 online help options and web services
are not working. This can be fixed by visiting http://ftp.sas.com/techsup/download/hotfix/hotfix.html
and installing the BASE SAS Hot Fix Bundle 82BX07. The hot fix package
download is a self-extracting executable named 82bx07wn.exe. Launching the executable
will initiate the installation wizard, which will guide you through the set-up
process. All current SAS sessions must be terminated before applying this fix.
If you encounter any other SAS software problems, from any version, there are
additional fixes available at the same website that might address your problems.
5. Cecilia Grace-Martin
We are pleased and excited to announce that Karen Grace-Martin, one of our consultants,
gave birth to a girl, Cecilia, on January 17, 2004. Both mom and baby are doing
well. We wish Karen and husband Michael the best of luck with the new addition
to their family. Karen will be back in her office in mid-April.
Back to Stat Happenings Table of Contents
(This newsletter was distributed to faculty and graduate students
in the Division of Nutritional Sciences and the College of Human Ecology, and
faculty in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, by the Office of Statistical
Consulting. Please forward it to any interested colleagues and research staff.
Anyone not receiving this newsletter who would like to be added to the mailing
list for future newsletters should contact statcons@cornell.edu.
Information about the Office of Statistical Consulting can be obtained at World
Wide Web address http://www.human.cornell.edu/admin/statcons/.)