SURV617

Prerequisite: SURV615 and SURV616; or permission of instructor. Credit only granted for: SURV617, SURV746, or SURV699R. Formerly: SURV699R and SURV746. Designed for students on both the social science and statistical tracks for the two programs in survey methodology, will provide students with exposure to applications of more advanced statistical modeling tools for both substantive and methodological investigations that are not fully covered in other MPSM or JPSM courses. Modeling techniques to be covered include multilevel modeling (with an application to methodological studies of interviewer effects), structural equation modeling (with an application of latent class models to methodological studies of measurement error), classification trees (with an application to prediction of response propensity), and alternative models for longitudinal data (with an application to panel survey data from the Health and Retirement Study). Discussions and examples of each modeling technique will be supplemented with methods for appropriately handling complex sample designs when fitting the models. The class will focus on practical applications and software rather than extensive theoretical discussions.