Summer Program 2010 Course Details
| Course Name : | Data Analysis using Stata | ||
| Course Level : | Intermediate (week 2) | ||
| Instructor : | Jo Dipnall | Email : | jodip@cognetive.com.au |
Pre-Requisites
This course assumes that participants have (1) reasonable understanding of statistics to be able to comprehend the material covered in the course outline below (e.g. regression analysis) (2) some familiarity with a PC environment including keyboard skills and understanding of folder and file structures, (3) some experience in using Microsoft Word and Excel or their equivalent (4) some experience using a text editor such as Notepad, UltraEdit. It does not assume prior experience with Stata, SAS, SPSS or any other specific statistical packages although any such experience would be helpful.
Outline
The aim of the course is to provide the participants with understanding and experience to undertake a basic research project in the social or health sciences using Stata as the statistical tool. Stata is a comprehensive integrated package for data management, analysis and graphics. Stata version11 has a comprehensive GUI interface. The course will be presented in a way that introduces beginners to survey reseach and at the same time extends the capabilities of more experienced researchers. Sample datasets will be provided, but participants are encouraged to bring some of their own data for analysis in Excel or ASCII format. Teaching and practice will be closely integrated, and individual assistance will be provided as needed. Preparing Stata datasets. Introduction to the Stata system. Data analysis and session management. Looking at Stata datasets. Sources of help. Basic Commands. Modifying data, editing, recording, checking and todying. Stat do-files (syntax files). Generating new variables. inputting data into Stata. Introduction to Stata graphics. Outputting results to Word etc. Handling strings and dates. Handling missing data. Starting the analysis. Initial univariate analysis: frequency distributions, exploratory data analysis. Initial bivariate analysis: cross-tabluations, corrections. t-tests and analysis or variance. Developing scales and indices: summated scales, factor analysis, alpha coefficient. More graphics including scatterplots, box plots.
Regression analysis. Introduction to Regression analysis: ordinary least squares. Checking assumptions with regression diagnostics. More graphics including regression diagnostics. Basic introduction to logistic regression.
Analysis of survey data. Introduction to sampling for survey data.
Sundry topics. Advanced dataset management: merge, collapse, reshape. Additional (user-contributes) Stata procedures. Checking and archiving data.
Acknowledgement: ACSPRI thanks Survey Design and Analysis (on behalf of StataCorp LP) for their support over the period of the Summer Program 2010.
References
Course notes will be supplied. No specific references are suggested although participants are encouraged to bring any Stata documentation they may have. For an overview of the Stata package, please visit http://survey-design.com.au or http://stata.com.
Related Courses
This course provides the researcher with experience in using Stata for quantitative data analysis, preferably taken following an introductory course in statistics. Students who have completed courses such as Data Analysis in SPSS or Data Analysis in SAS will find this course relevant if they now need to use Stata.