Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 11 of 11

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Teaching Statistics To Msw Students: Comparing Credit And Non-Credit Options, Ashley Davis, Rebecca G. Mirick Dec 2017

Teaching Statistics To Msw Students: Comparing Credit And Non-Credit Options, Ashley Davis, Rebecca G. Mirick

Rebecca Mirick

In professional disciplines like social work, students are expected to be able to understand and apply basic statistical concepts. Graduate programs differ in how they expect students to develop this ability; some require a full-credit statistics course as a prerequisite to admission, and others incorporate statistics into social work research courses. The for-credit requirement has a high financial and time cost for students. This exploratory study examined the feasibility of replacing this requirement with a brief, non-credit statistics course. MSW students (n=168) who took both types of courses were surveyed. No association was found between the type of course and …


Measuring Gender Difference In Information Sharing Using Network Analysis: The Case Of The Austrian Interlocking Directorship Network In 2009, Carlo Drago, Livia Amidani Aliberti, Davide Carbonai Jul 2014

Measuring Gender Difference In Information Sharing Using Network Analysis: The Case Of The Austrian Interlocking Directorship Network In 2009, Carlo Drago, Livia Amidani Aliberti, Davide Carbonai

Carlo Drago

In recent literature a relevant problem has been the relationship between career/personal contact networks and different career paths. In addition the recent advances in social capital theory have shown the way in which networks impact on personal careers. In particular women’s careers appear to be negatively affected by the informational network structure. The main contribution of this work is to propose empirical evidence of this phenomenon by considering the gendered directorship network with relation to Austria and to show the structural differences by gender in the network. By using community detection techniques we have found various communities in which females …


A Note On The Indeterminacy And Arbitrariness Of Pena’S Method Of Construction Of Synthetic Indicators, Sudhanshu K. Mishra Mar 2012

A Note On The Indeterminacy And Arbitrariness Of Pena’S Method Of Construction Of Synthetic Indicators, Sudhanshu K. Mishra

Sudhanshu K Mishra

In this paper we demonstrate that Pena’s method of construction of a synthetic indicator is very sensitive to the order in which the constituent variables (whose linear aggregation yields the synthetic indicator) are arranged. Since m number of constituent variables may be arranged in m-factorial ways, even a moderately large m can give rise to a very large number of synthetic indicators from which one cannot choose the one which best represents the constituent variables. Given that an analyst has too little information as to the order in which a sizeable number of constituent variables must be arranged so as …


Beyond Multiple Regression: Using Commonality Analysis To Better Understand R2 Results, Russell Warne Sep 2011

Beyond Multiple Regression: Using Commonality Analysis To Better Understand R2 Results, Russell Warne

Russell T Warne

Multiple regression is one of the most common statistical methods used in quantitative educational research. Despite the versatility and easy interpretability of multiple regression, it has some shortcomings in the detection of suppressor variables and for somewhat arbitrarily assigning values to the structure coefficients of correlated independent variables. Commonality analysis—heretofore rarely used in gifted education research—is a statistical method that partitions the explained variance of a dependent variable into nonoverlapping parts according to the independent variable(s) that are related to each portion. This Methodological Brief includes an example of commonality analysis and equations for researchers who wish to conduct their …


A Statistical Test For The Capacity Coefficient, Joseph W. Houpt, James T. Townsend Jul 2011

A Statistical Test For The Capacity Coefficient, Joseph W. Houpt, James T. Townsend

Joseph W. Houpt

No abstract provided.


Big Macs And Eigenfactor Scores: Don't Let The Correlation Coefficients Fool You, Jevin D. West, Carl T. Bergstrom, Theodore C. Bergstrom Apr 2010

Big Macs And Eigenfactor Scores: Don't Let The Correlation Coefficients Fool You, Jevin D. West, Carl T. Bergstrom, Theodore C. Bergstrom

Ted C Bergstrom

A recent article by Phil Davis suggested that the Eigenvalue metric does adds little useful information to the more simply calculated measure of total citations published by the ISI. This paper argues that Davis's claim is an instance of a classic statistical fallacy of spurious correlation. Based on an analysis of the entire 2006 ISI Journal Citation Reports, we show that there are statistically and economically significant differences between the Eigenfactor metrics and the ISI's impact factor and total citations.


Temporal Changes In The Parameters Of Statistical Distribution Of Journal Impact Factor, Sudhanshu K. Mishra Mar 2010

Temporal Changes In The Parameters Of Statistical Distribution Of Journal Impact Factor, Sudhanshu K. Mishra

Sudhanshu K Mishra

Statistical distribution of Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is characteristically asymmetric and non-mesokurtic. Even the distribution of log10(JIF) exhibits conspicuous skewness and non-mesokurticity. In this paper we estimate the parameters of Johnson SU distribution fitting to the log10(JIF) data for 10 years, 1999 through 2008, and study the temporal variations in those estimated parameters. We also study ‘over-the-samples stability’ in the estimated parameters for each year by the method of re-sampling close to bootstrapping. It has been found that log10(JIF) is Pearson-IV distributed. Johnson SU distribution fits very well to the data and yields parameters stable over the samples. We conclude …


Empirical Probability Distribution Of Journal Impact Factor And Over-The-Samples Stability In Its Estimated Parameters, Sudhanshu K. Mishra Feb 2010

Empirical Probability Distribution Of Journal Impact Factor And Over-The-Samples Stability In Its Estimated Parameters, Sudhanshu K. Mishra

Sudhanshu K Mishra

The data on JIFs provided by Thomson Scientific can only be considered as a sample since they do not cover the entire universe of those documents that cite an intellectual output (paper, article, etc) or are cited by others. Then, questions arise if the empirical distribution (best fit to the JIF data for any particular year) really represents the true or universal distribution, are its estimated parameters stable over the samples and do they have some scientific interpretation? It may be noted that if the estimated parameters do not exhibit stability over the samples (while the sample size is large …


A Note On Empirical Sample Distribution Of Journal Impact Factors In Major Discipline Groups, Sudhanshu K. Mishra Feb 2010

A Note On Empirical Sample Distribution Of Journal Impact Factors In Major Discipline Groups, Sudhanshu K. Mishra

Sudhanshu K Mishra

What type of statistical distribution do the Journal Impact Factors follow? In the past, researchers have hypothesized various types of statistical distributions underlying the generation mechanism of journal impact factors. These are: lognormal, normal, approximately normal, Weibull, negative exponential, combination of exponentials, Poisson, Generalized inverse Gaussian-Poisson, negative binomial, generalized Waring, gamma, etc. It is pertinent to note that the major characteristics of JIF data lay in the asymmetry and non-mesokurticity. The present study, frequently encounters Burr-XII, inverse Burr-III (Dagum), Johnson SU, and a few other distributions closely related to Burr distributions to best fit the JIF data in subject groups …


Basic Statistics-I, Durgesh Chandra Pathak Jan 2009

Basic Statistics-I, Durgesh Chandra Pathak

Durgesh Chandra Pathak

It's a presentation that I prepared for JRF-students in Development Studies.


Significant Differences: The Construction Of Knowledge, Objectivity, And Dominance, Donna M. Hughes Dr. Dec 1994

Significant Differences: The Construction Of Knowledge, Objectivity, And Dominance, Donna M. Hughes Dr.

Donna M. Hughes

The scientific method is a tool for the construction and justification of dominance in the world. The invention of statistics was a major methodological advance in the descriptive sciences causing a shift from descriptive analysis to mathematical analysis. The new methodological techniques were invented by men who were interested in explaining the inheritance of traits in order to support their political ideology of natural human superiority and inferiority. The statistical techniques transformed the scientific method and resulted in a process that constructs knowledge and establishes "significant differences" between the dominant group as the norm and the subordinate group as the …