GEOG 400

Geographical Analysis

Project 6: Multivariate Statistical Research Design

Introduction

The previous labs have each introduced you to a different advanced statistical method, from the mathematical transformation of variables, through logistic regression, multiple regression, and principle components analysis. Rather than just introducing you to yet another technique, of which there are boodles, I decided instead to have you design a study from the ground up on your own.

Up until now, the labs have used a cookbook approach and kind of spoonfed you the step-by-step process of applying one of these methods. At this point, you have enough information and practice to figure out how to set up a study on your own, determining the kinds of variables you have, their distributions, whether there is a dependent variable you're trying to explain, and how to cope with an embarrassment of variable riches. You have a sense of when a formal research hypothesis is called for and the process of deciding whether or not it fails or succeeds.

Goals of this lab, then:

• have you explore three databases
• design a study using one of these databases
• give you even more practice using SPSS
• interpret the outcome of your study in a logical manner
• write up your results and analysis

Project deliverables are:

• SPSS output, signed
• a signed essay, in which you introduce the data and problem, formulate hypotheses if appropriate, the method you have decided to apply and why you chose it, any possible problems with the application of this method to these data and how you dealt with them, your results, and a discussion of their meaning

Getting the Data

Download the following three databases:

• http://www.csulb.edu/~rodrigue/geog400/dwprain.xls (Los Angeles Department of Water and Power data on precipitation in the Owens Valley and runoff at Bishop)
• http://www.csulb.edu/~rodrigue/geog400/jobseu79.xls (job structure among European countries in 1979 and this map might make the geopolitics and economics of the situation more transparent: http://www.3ad.com/history/cold.war/nato.landcarte.2.htm)
• http://www.csulb.edu/~rodrigue/geog400/tracegas.xls (palæoclimate data on the concentration of various trace gases, volcanic sulfates, solar irradiance, and borehole records of ground temperature from 1610-1980). This is where I assembled the database, and it's very informative about climate reconstruction science: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/

You'll design a study based on these data from the ground up. To do that, become familiar with them by opening them up to have a look at them all. Start playing around with them, perhaps importing them all into SPSS, trying to see which of the methods you've learned about (or possibly one in the book and in SPSS that we haven't done this semester if you're feeling really adventurous) might help you make sense of it. With at least one of the databases, you could come up with sensible results using two different methods. At least one of the others would allow you to combine methods coherently. Futzing around with them really is the way to make multivariate statistics fun and get you in the right frame of mind to take on your own database and make those numbers sing!

Once you have familiarized yourself with these databases and poked around in them in SPSS, pick one of particular topical or methodological interest to you.

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This document is maintained by Dr. Rodrigue
First placed on Web: 04/17/06
Last Updated: 04/22/08