Summer 2011
This page may be modified from time to time during the semester. Check back regularly
NOTE: The following special types of files are sometimes used on this web page. If you aren't using one of the campus networked machines, you may need to download and install the free Adobe Acrobat Reader, available for both Windows and Apple machines.
Pdf files. Require Adobe Acrobat. Online Readings Packet with Discussion Questions (ND.Edu Netid is required for access)
Introduction
Online readings for the Introduction
Experimentation
Online readings and discussion questions for experimentation
Additional hints and tips for project 1.
Measurement I - Reliability and Validity
Online readings and discussion questions for Measurement I
Measurement II - Questions & Questionnaires; Sensitive Questions
Online readings and discussion questions for Measurement II
Exam I Materials
Surveys I - Basics of Survey Research; Sampling
Online readings and discussion questions for Surveys I
Surveys II - Survey Administration; Alternative types of Surveys
Online readings and discussion questions for Surveys II
Some Useful Links for the 2nd project
For your convenience, I have listed some of the links I think you will find most useful; but feel free to browse around the Census web pages, as there is lots of information and lots of different ways of doing things.
American Factfinder - Geography Lookup for Census 2000 & ACS Data through 2009 (This has information from Census 2000 and the most recent years of data available from the American Community Survey. You can type in your address if you want, and get maps of your neighborhood. The quick tables and other summary tables contain a wealth of information and may be enough to meet your needs. When using the ACS, how much detail you can get depends, in part, on how small of an area you are trying to look at.)
American Factfinder - Geography Lookup for Census 2010 (This has information from Census 2010. At least right now, this seems to be harder to work with than the Census 2000 data is. The detailed data for your home town or neighborhood may or may not be available yet. Hopefully this will be much better in the next year or two.)
Also, the American Community Survey offers more up to date statistics than Census 2000, but with less geographic detail, e.g. you can get cities but not individual Census tracts. Here is the ACS Home Page. You can access the data via the American Factfinder. If you need help, this brochure shows how to access the ACS data online. This may work better than Census 2010 for your purposes if you want more current data than Census 2000 has.
Other Census Data that may be helpful if the above don't give you what you want:
Census 2010 Home Page (Includes a lot of information on recent findings)
Census 2000 Gateway (Overview of available data, as well as background info on the Census)
State and County Quick Facts (Can also get city info; uses data from multiple sources)
Census 2000 and Census 1990 Data Sets (harder to use than some other links but gives you the most control. One nice feature is that you can select multiple geographic units at once.)
Census 1990 (Info about the 1990 Census)
Options for Foreign Students. Foreign students are welcome to choose the neighborhood they live in now or lived in in the past for Project 2. However, they are also welcome to compare, say, their country with the US, or some other country, or the entire world. You could, for example, compare countries on literacy rates, educational attainment, women in the labor force and other gender-related variables, birth rates, population growth, use of contraception, health and mortality, income... Actually, there are a lot of interesting variables in international data sets that you don't find in the US Census.There are many good sources of easy to use international data. Some suggestions:
http://www.prb.org/DataFinder.aspx (Just pick the country or countries you want. If you choose the customize option, you could, for example, get side by side comparisons of the US and your country. Even more easy is to just compare, say, your country with the rest of the world).
http://www.prb.org/pdf10/10wpds_eng.pdf (lots and lots of side by side comparisons of countries -- especially nice since things are measured more or less the same way for each country)
http://data.un.org/ (Again, you can search for the countries you want).
Content AnalysisOnline readings and discussion questions for Content Analysis
Observational Research
Online readings and discussion questions for Observational Research
Ethics
Online readings and discussion questions for Ethics
Semester in Review
Online readings and discussion questions for Semester in Review
