Resource Library

This module is designed to illustrate the effects of selection bias on the observed relationship between premarital cohabitation and later divorce. It also serves as a review of key methodological concepts introduced in the first part of the course.

How are earnings determined? Why do some people earn more than others? Does a better job necessarily mean a better salary? In this module, students will attempt to answer these questions and many others by examining factors such as education and occupation in terms of the role they play in determining earnings. Students will also look at the earnings of whites and compare them to the earnings of blacks, Latinos, and Asians. Another consideration will center on the effect of gender. Finally, students will turn their attention to the age of workers in terms what role it plays in determing earnings. Aside from earnings, students will also take a brief look at poverty with respect to the effect race-ethnicity and family structure has on creating and sustaining it.

In this module you will have the opportunity to explore the frequency of different types of residential moves carried out by Americans. You will examine some of the basic determinants of residential mobility by looking at variations in different types of mobility by age, marital status, education, and housing tenure. Finally, you will have an opportunity to test hypotheses, drawn from a popular theoretical perspective, about racial differences in residential mobility.

In this module you will explore some of the impacts of this immigration by examining the characteristics of the foreign-born population, comparing these characteristics to those of the native born population. You will get a chance to explore where immigrants come from, how the composition of the immigrant population has changed, where immigrants settle, and what they do once they get here. Most importantly, you will have the opportunity to test some key hypotheses drawn from the most popular theory used to explain the incorporation of immigrants into the American social and economic mainstream.

The textbook for this course discusses cross-cultural variations in household structure, as well as changes across time in household structure in the United States. The purpose of this exercise is to examine variations in household structure in the United States according to race and historical period. By the end of the exercise students should have a better appreciation of the fact that household structure in the U.S. is very fluid and that changes over time in household structure have not progressed uniformly for all race groups.

This tutorial provides a basic introduction to many topics in statistics and probability. Topics include: Sets and subsets, Statistical experiments, Counting, Basic probability rules, Bayes' theorem, Probability distributions, Discrete vs. Continuous, Binomial, Negative Binomial, Hypergeometric, Multinomial, Poisson, Normal, Sampling theory, Central tendency, Variability, Sampling distributions, t Distribution, Chi-Square Distribution, F Distribution, Estimation problems, Hypothesis testing, Power, Survey sampling, Simple random samples, Stratified samples, Cluster samples, Sample size.

This day may possibly be my last: but the laws of probability, so true in general, so fallacious in particular, still allow about fifteen years. A quote of English historian Edward Gibbon (1737 - 1794). The quote was written in 1787 and was published after his death in "Miscellaneous works of Edward Gibbon, with memoirs of his life and writings composed by himself" edited by Lord John Seffield, 1796

This resource explains the t-distribution and hypothesis testing (informally) using an example on laptop quality.

This resource discusses sample sizes and how they are chosen.

This resource explains margin of error using an example on presidential popularity polls.