Using Statistics and Data Sets for Teaching (SDA)

Using Statistics and Data Sets for Teaching

Contact

Stephen Woods
Title: Social Sciences Librarian Specializing in Data and Government Information

Survey Documentation and Analysis (SDA)

Tool: Survey Documentation and Analysis (SDA)
Description: SDA is a robust tool for allowing students to explore numerous surveys at a level of sophistication appropriate to their level of experience. Instructors have produced and published instructional modules on a variety of topics that can easily be incorporated into the further development of a course.

SDA Tutorials:

Videos and Webinars at the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research Description: an introduction to SDA, overview of SDA and its features, SDA tutorial on frequencies and crosstabs, and another on subsetting using SDA.

An Introduction to the UT/DLS: Microdata Analysis Subsetting (SDA@UOFT) Contact: Lindsay Tedds Description: Tedds description of SDA starts on page 11 of this document. Provided are learning objectives and exercises from the General Social Survey 2003 using SDA for: frequency distributions and graphs, analyzing bivariate relationships, basic data manipulation, and downloading subsets of data.

Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS). Sponsored by the Minnesota Population Center. There are four SDA modules focusing on creating frequencies and cross tabulations from separate IPUMS collections

o Census & American Community Survey
o Current Population Survey
o North Atlantic Population Project
o Integrated Health Interview Series

Mexico Data Web Project.  Sponsored by the University of California San Diego.

o Basic Exploration of Datasets with SDA
      o Elementary Statistical Exploration with SDA

Scientific Research on the Internet. Sponsored by the University of Maryland.

o Web-based tutorial
o PowerPoint

Online SDA Help Files for SDA Users.

SDA Instructional Models

ICPSR's Online Learning Center (OLC) Guides include: instructional goals and concepts, description of the data being used, application, questions for interpretation and summary, and link to a bibliography. They are organized by subject, analysis type, and dataset.
Supplementary Empirical Teaching Units in Political Science. Provides instructional modules for analyzing voting behavior from the 2008 and 2004 elections.
Community and Social Capital. Instructional module at ICPSR that teaches data analysis of social capital, as discussed in Robert D. Putnam's Bowling Alone. Concepts illustrated include replication, unit of analysis, level of measurement, analysis over time versus cross-sectional analysis, cross-tabulation, creating an index, and correlation.
The Instruction in Data Exploration and Analysis (IDEA) Project. Sponsored by the University of Denver by Chip Reichardt. Focus on lessons in Psychology. Instructional modules include: astrology, emotion, human sexuality, prejudice against women, and racial prejudice and discrimination.
TeachingWithData.org Great ideas for undergraduates. Not all of the modules have SDA associated data. TeachingWithData.org is a portal of teaching and learning resources for infusing quantitative literacy into the social science curriculum.

SDA Dataset Archives

SDA: Survey Documentation and Analysis Archive This archive contains access to the General Social Survey 1972-2010 and the American National Election Study. These are two large national surveys that explore many cross-disciplinary issues.

Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS). Sponsored by the University of Minnesota Population Center. There are four separate IPUMS collections that provide access to different surveys

o Census & American Community Survey. Explore issues addressed in the decennial Census for the United States 1850-2009 from the 1% sample and the American Community Survey.
o Current Population Survey. Explore annual socio-economic questions on a variety of topics from 1962-2010 from one of the United States largest surveys.
o North Atlantic Population Project. Explore questions from the 1800s censuses of Canada, Great Britain, Norway, Sweden, and the U.S.
o Integrated Health Interview Series. Explore annual questions the largest health survey, National Health Interview Survey, in the United States. Harmonized data is available from the 1960s to the present
Inter-University Consortium for Social and Political Research (ICPSR). This resource will also connect the student with research literature done with data from the survey.

Note: If you don’t already have an account with ICPSR you will need to create one using your PSU e-mail to access all ICPSR datasets that have SDA analysis capability.

o Analyze Data Online. Over 700 datasets that provide SDA analysis
o Substance Abuse and Mental Health Data Archive
o National Archive of Criminal Justice Data
o National Archive of Computerized Data on Aging
o Resource Center for Minority Data
Cultural Policy and the Arts National Data Archive (CPANDA), Princeton University. CPANDA is the world's first interactive digital archive of policy-relevant data on the arts and cultural policy in the United States.
Survey Research Center Data Archive, UC Berkeley. Mostly contains California and locally related surveys.
Scientific research on the Internet, University of Maryland. Primarily a collection of surveys related to Internet use.