Analyzing Social Science Data

PART ONE: HOW TO PREPARE DATA FOR ANALYSIS/How to Code Data/How to Code Questions with Multiple Answers/Can the Respondent's Answers be Relied on?/How to Check that the Right Thing is Being Measured/TWO: HOW TO PREPARE VARIABLES FOR ANALYSIS/How to Deal with Variables with Lots of Categories /How to Identify and Change the Level of Measurement of Variables/How to Deal with Questions that Fail to Identify Real Differences Between Cases/How to Rearrange the Categories of a Variable/What to do with Gaps in the Data/What to do with People who 'Don't Know', 'Have no Opinion' or 'Can't Decide'/How to Tell if the Distribution is Normal/How to Tell if the Relationship is Linear/How to Tell if Outlier Cases are a Problem/What to do if the Required Variable is not Available/How to Compare Apples with Oranges/Comparing Scores on Different Variables/PART THREE: HOW TO REDUCE THE AMOUNT OF DATA TO ANALYSE/How to Work Out Which Variables to Use/How to Combine Information from a Set of Variables into a Single Measure/How to Build a Good Likert Scale/How to Build a Scale Using Factor Analysis/PART FOUR: HOW AND WHEN TO GENERALISE/What Does it Mean to Generalize?/How to Judge the Extent and Effect of Sample Bias/How to Weight Samples to Adjust for Bias/What are Tests of Significance?/Should Tests of Significance be Used?/What Factors Affect Significance Levels?/Is the Sample Large Enough to Achieve Statistical Significance?/Should Confidence Intervals be Used?/PART FIVE: HOW TO ANALYSE A SINGLE VARIABLE/How to Use Tables Effectively to Display the Distribution of a Single Variable/How to Use Graphs for Single Variables/Which Summary Statistics to Use to Describe a Single Variable/Which Statistics to Use to Generalise about a Single Variable/PART SIX: HOW TO ANALYSE TWO VARIABLES/How and When to Use Crosstabulations/Which Graph to Use/How to Narrow down the Choice When Selecting Summary Statistics/How to Interpret a Correlation Coefficient/Which Correlation?/How much Impact Does a Variable Have?/How to Tell if Groups are Different/Which Test of Significance?/How are Confidence Intervals used in Bivariate Analysis?/PART SEVEN: HOW TO CARRY OUT MULTIVARIATE ANALYSIS/Understanding Bivariate Relationships/The Logic of Elaboration Analysis/Using Conditional Tables as a Method of Elaboration Analysis/Using Conditional Correlations for Elaboration Analysis/Using Partial Tables as a Method of Elaboration Analysis/Using Partial Correlations for Elaboration Analysis/What Type of Data are Needed for Multiple Regression?/How to do a Multiple Regression/How to Use Non-interval Variables in Multiple Regression/What Does the Multiple Regression Output Mean?/What Other Multivariate Methods are Availabe?