Statistics and Statistical Programming (Fall 2020)/pset2

← Back to Week 4

For this problem set, the programming challenges focus on some of the more advanced fundamentals (is that a thing?) of R, including some of the new types of data import, transformation, tidying, and visualization introduced in the weekly R tutorial materials.

The topics/skills covered here include: <TODO>

As before, the problem set is structured to model the sort of workflow you might pursue whenever you encounter a new dataset, starting with data import, summary and description of variables of interest, data transformation and tidying, before moving on to more sophisticated analysis and visualization. From here on out, I will assume that you have become familiar with some of the more basic fundamental skills (e.g., creating your R Markdown script or notebook) and that you have some ideas of where to turn for help and more information when you need it.

Empirical Paper Questions: Emotional contagion in social networks

Refer to the following (controversial! highly cited! moderately straightforward!) paper to answer the questions below. Please be prepared to identify specific parts of the paper that support your answers. Note that several of the questions below correspond loosely to the questions I have asked you to answer with respect to your research project plan and dataset identification assignment due later this week (that's called "scaffolding" for those of you keeping score at home).

Kramer, Adam D. I., Jamie E. Guillory, and Jeffrey T. Hancock. 2014. “Experimental Evidence of Massive-Scale Emotional Contagion through Social Networks.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111(24):8788–90. [Open access]

EQ1: Research questions and objectives

Restate or describe, in your own words, (a) the main research question of the paper and be sure to identify (b) the population of interest ("target population").

EQ2: Sample and experiment design

Describe (a) the sample used in the study; (b) the treatment and control groups, and (c) the experimental manipulation(s).

EQ3: Data and variables

Describe (a) the unit of analysis or cases, (b) the main variables used and their "types" (e.g., continuous, categorical, etc. See OpenIntro chapter 1 for ideas).

EQ4: Results

Summarize the results of the study. There is one figure in the paper (Figure 1). Explain how the figure represents the results.

EQ5: Interpretation and contribution (significance)

(a) Summarize the authors' interpretation of the study results. (b) Discuss whether the results generalize from the sample to the target population. (c) Summarize the core contribution of the paper.