Featuring examples, over 120 screenshots and step-by-step instructions, this workbook will be an invaluable resource for students facing the task of undertaking statistical research as part of their politics course.

In Philip H. Pollock III and Barry C. Edwards’ trusted IBM SPSS® workbook, students dive headfirst into actual political data and work with a software tool that prepares them not only for future political science research, but the job world as well. Students learn by doing with new guided examples, annotated screenshots, step-by-step instructions, and exercises that reflect current scholarly debates in American political behavior and comparative politics. This Sixth Edition of An IBM SPSS® Companion to Political Analysis features thoroughly revised and updated datasets and is compatible with all post-12 releases of SPSS.

In Philip H. Pollock's An IBM SPSS® Companion to Political Analysis, students dive headfirst into actual political data and work with a software tool that prepares them for future political science research. Students learn by doing with fresh guided examples, new annotated screenshots, step-by-step instructions, and exercises that reflect current scholarly debates in American political behavior and comparative politics. Compatible with all releases of SPSS (12.0 and later), the all-new Fifth Edition includes 53 new or revised exercises. Two new datasets (NES 2012 and GSS 2012) and two revised datasets (on the 50 states and on 167 countries of the world) feature an expanded number of variables to provide greater latitude for performing original analysis.

This popular companion volume gets students using actual political data, and working with a software tool that properly prepares them for future political science courses. A no-nonsense introduction to SPSS, the workbook uses over 110 screen shots to provide step-by-step instruction and advice on using the statistics program most used by today's political scientists. With updated customized datasets, this workbook equips students to analyze real political science research. The second edition has been updated for SPSS 12.0 and 13.0, but also accommodates users of 11.0 and student versions.

This Fifth Edition of The Essentials of Political Analysis equips students with the skills to conduct political analysis and critically assess statistical research. Bestselling author Philip H. Pollock III builds students’ analytic abilities and develops their statistical reasoning with new data, fresh exercises, and engaging examples. This accessible introduction to the essential elements of political analysis walks students through the basics—measuring concepts, describing variables, formulating and testing hypotheses, controlling for alternative explanations, and interpreting graphic displays, and nearly 50 practical exercises motivate them to use their new skills with confidence.

The Fifth Edition of A Stata® Companion to Political Analysis by Philip H. Pollock III and Barry C. Edwards teaches your students to conduct political research with Stata, one of the most popular statistical software packages. This workbook offers the same easy-to-use and effective style as the other companions to the Essentials of Political Analysis, to work with Stata versions 12 through 17. With this comprehensive workbook, students analyze research-quality data to learn descriptive statistics, data transformations, bivariate analysis (such as cross-tabulations and mean comparisons), controlled comparisons, correlation and bivariate regression, interaction effects, and logistic regression. The many annotated screen shots, as well as QR codes linking to demonstration videos, supplement the clear explanations and instructions. End-of-chapter exercises allow students to ample space to practice their skills. The Fifth Edition includes new and revised exercises, along with new and updated datasets from the 2020 American National Election Study, an experiment dataset, and two aggregate datasets, one on 50 U.S. states and one based on countries of the world. A new 15-chapter structure helps break up individual elements of political analysis for deeper explanation while updated screenshots reflect the latest platform.

An SPSS Companion to Political Analysis introduces SPSS using actual political data, getting students to employ the tools of their methods course right away in the computer lab. With more than 110 screen shots, straightforward instructions, and customised data sets - for both students and full versions of SPSS - the workbook companion equips students to do real political science research and analysis. As part of this useful guide, a CD-ROM includes five different datasets: Two individual-level survey datasets (the 2000 US National Election Study and the 1998 US General Social Survey), two datasets containing aggregate-level variables (on the fifty US states and on 114 nations of the world), and a dataset that measures partisanship, voting behaviour, and ideology of members of the United States Senate.

In Philip H. Pollock's An IBM SPSS® Companion to Political Analysis, students dive headfirst into actual political data and work with a software tool that prepares them for future political science research. Students learn by doing with fresh guided examples, new annotated screenshots, step-by-step instructions, and exercises that reflect current scholarly debates in American political behavior and comparative politics. Compatible with all releases of SPSS (12.0 and later), the all-new Fifth Edition includes 53 new or revised exercises. Two new datasets (NES 2012 and GSS 2012) and two revised datasets (on the 50 states and on 167 countries of the world) feature an expanded number of variables to provide greater latitude for performing original analysis.

In Philip H. Pollock III and Barry C. Edwards’ trusted IBM SPSS® workbook, students dive headfirst into actual political data and work with a software tool that prepares them not only for future political science research, but the job world as well. Students learn by doing with new guided examples, annotated screenshots, step-by-step instructions, and exercises that reflect current scholarly debates in American political behavior and comparative politics. This Sixth Edition of An IBM SPSS® Companion to Political Analysis features thoroughly revised and updated datasets and is compatible with all post-12 releases of SPSS.

Tables and Figures ix Preface xiii Getting Started 1 Copying the Data Files to Floppy Disk or Other Portable Media 2 How to Handle the Datasets 2 Contents of the Datasets 4 Notes 4 Introduction to Stata 5 Commands Covered describe, codebook, set more off, search, help Changing General Preferences 5 Obtaining Information about a Dataset 6 Obtaining Information about Variables 9 Creating and Viewing a Log File 10 A Closer Look Obtaining Specific Variable Information with Define Notes 11 Printing Results 13 Getting Help 13 Exercises 17 Notes 17 Descriptive Statistics 19 Commands Covered tab1, summarize, sktest, histogram, Submit button Interpreting Measures of Central Tendency and Variation 19 Describing Nominal Variables 20 Describing Ordinal Variables 21 Describing Interval-level Variables 23 Obtaining Bar Charts and Histograms 27 Creating Bar Charts 27 Creating Histograms 32 A Closer Look The Submit Button and the OK Button: What's the Difference? 33 Exercises 35 Notes 40 Transforming Variables 43 Commands Covered recode, generate; generate, recode; xtile, nquantiles; generate; tabulate, generate; label variable; label define; label values; drop; aorder Transforming Categorical Variables 44 Transforming Interval-level Variables 46 A Closer Look The xtile Command 48 The label define and label values Commands 51 Creating an Additive Index 51 Creating Indicator Variables 53 Exercises 55 Notes 58 Making Comparisons 59 Commands Covered tabulate, column; tabulate, summarize; graph bar; format; replace Cross-tabulation Analysis 59 Mean Comparison Analysis 60 A Closer Look The format Command 62 Visualizing Relationships with Bar Charts 62 Graphing an Interval-level Dependent Variable 63 Graphing a Categorical Dependent Variable 67 A Closer Look The replace Command 70 Exercises 73 Notes 83 Making Controlled Comparisons 85 Commands Covered (prefix) bysort:, tabulate, col; tabulate, summarize; graph bar; if Cross-tabulation Analysis with a Control Variable 86 A Closer Look The if Qualifier 88 Bar Charts for Controlled Comparisons with a Categorical Dependent Variable 89 Mean Comparison Analysis with a Control Variable 91 Bar Charts for Controlled Comparisons with an Interval-level Dependent Variable 96 Exercises 98 Notes 105 Making Inferences about Sample Means 107 Commands Covered ttest; ttest, by; robvar, by Describing a Sample Mean 108 Testing the Difference between Two Sample Means 111 Exercises 116 Notes 118 Chi-square and Measures of Association 121 Commands Covered (tabulate option) chi2; (tabulate option) taub; (tabulate option) V; somersd; lambda; which; ssc install Installing lambda and somersd 122 Analyzing Ordinal-level Relationships 122 Analyzing Nominal-level Relationships 127 A Problem with Lambda 129 Exercises 130 Notes 136 Correlation and Linear Regression 137 Commands Covered correlate; regress; graph twoway (scatter); graph twoway (scatter)(lfit) The correlate Command and the regress Command 137 Creating a Scatterplot 139 A Closer Look R-squared and Adjusted R-squared: What's the Difference? 140 Exploring Multivariate Relationships with Regression 147 Exercises 150 Notes 156 Dummy Variables and Interaction Effects 159 Commands Covered xi: regress; char [omit]; test Regression with Dummy Variables A Closer Look The test Command 162 Interaction Effects in Multiple Regression 164 Graphing Linear Prediction Lines for Interaction Relationships 167 Exercises 173 Notes 178 Logistic Regression 181 Commands Covered logit; logistic; estimates store; Irtest, force; predict; adjust, by pr gen; quietly:; tabstat, by The logit Command and the logistic Command 182 Logistic Regression with Multiple Independent Variables 185 A Closer Look The estimates Command and the Irtest Command 187 Working with Predicted Probabilities: Models with One Independent Variable 188 Working with Predicted Probabilities: Models with Multiple Independent Variables 191 Exercises 196 Notes 201 Doing Your Own Political Analysis 203 Commands Covered insheet Five Doable Ideas 203 Political Knowledge 204 Economic Performance and Election Outcomes 204 State Courts and Criminal Procedure 204 Electoral Turnout in Comparative Perspective 205 Congress 205 Doing Research on the U.S. Senate 205 Finding Raw Data 206 How to Code Raw Data 206 A Closer Look The Stata Data Editor 208 Two Possible Coding Shortcuts 210 Importing Text Data 212 Writing It Up 215 The Research Question 215 Previous Research 216 Data, Hypotheses, and Analysis 216 Conclusions and Implications 216 Notes 217.