In this week’s episode Greg and Patrick talk with Ken Bollen who is a Professor of Psychology and Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In addition to exploring topics including home made rockets, sitars, and Jimi Hendrix, Ken talks with them about his brand new book Elements of Structural Equation Models and how […]
S7E17 Elements of Structural Equation Models with Ken Bollen Read More »
In this week’s episode, Greg and Patrick discuss the decades-old method of the regression discontinuity design and describe how, when properly applied, this approach can strengthen our causal inferences when using quasi-experimental data. Along the way they also discuss Ravenclaw vs. Gryffindor, playing barefoot darts, gaming the system, I see dead people, Googling age cut-offs,
S7E16 Jumping Into Regression Discontinuity Designs Read More »
In this In the Wild episode, Greg and Patrick turn their Quantitude loose on college rankings. In particular, they discuss whether these rankings are of use to anyone at all, and what issues we would need to have addressed in order for us to be able to answer that question. Related Episodes S7E11 Should Essays be Used
S7E15 Are College Rankings Useful? Maybe… Read More »
In this week’s episode Greg and Patrick talk, for the third time, about power analysis, drawing on a recent paper by Greg and Yi Feng at UCLA, that reminds us how little we actually know when sample size planning, and then offers a concrete, cautious strategy for planning in the face of that uncertainty. Along
S7E14 Sample Size Planning: The Groundhog Day Episode Read More »
In this week’s episode Greg and Patrick explore the incredibly cool possibilities offered by the time-varying effects model as a non-parametric alternative to the more restrictive time-varying covariate model. Along the way we also discuss North Dakota, Cal Ripken Jr., pre-gaming, not trying to be funny, left lane guy, Walker Texas Ranger, smelling toast, Bob
S7E13 Time-Varying Effect Models Read More »
This week’s episode is the seventh annual Quantitude Holiday Special, but because Greg and Patrick both forgot to get each other something, they frantically regift one another some of their favorite sponsors from prior episodes. Along the way they also discuss Quantitude Studio A, two foot tall porcelain penguins, electric bug zappers, personalized cutting boards,
S7E12 The Gift of Regifting Read More »
In this In The Wild episode, Greg and Patrick turn their Quantitude loose on college admission essays, in particular whether or not they should be used to make such high-stakes decisions, and they discuss what issues would need to be addressed in order to answer that question. Related Episodes S7E10: A Report Card on GPAs S7E07: Is
S7E11 Should Essays be Used in College Admissions? Maybe… Read More »
In this week’s episode Greg and Patrick have fun exploring the questionably valid but always high stakes role of the grade point average, or GPA. They consider the different ways in which grades can be assigned, what they may or may not actually represent, and how they have become increasingly inflated over time. Along the
S7E10 A Report Card on GPAs Read More »
In this week’s episode Patrick and Greg talk about latent transition analysis, which embeds latent class analysis within a longitudinal context, allowing us to explore, as well as to formally test, patterns of individual change in latent class membership over time. Along the way they also mention: identity crises, the crossword puzzler, the nihilist, here
S7E09 Modeling Categorical Change with Latent Transition Analysis Read More »
In this week’s episode, Greg and I discuss the amazing world of the empirical bootstrap. We start with inferential testing using business as usual, we describe where that quickly runs into problems, and we explore where bootstrapping does and, importantly, does not help move us forward. Along the way we also discuss midnight in Bangkok,
S7E08 Bootstrapping Read More »
