REGRESSION AND STATISTICAL EFFECTS
Assignment Overview
The first step in understanding how to use regression effectively in your research is to understand just what it is, what sorts of estimates it produces, and what its assumptions and limitations are. It is a very complex topic, and there is no way you will do more than scratch the surface at this point in your training. Here are some useful links to help you familiar with the regression analysis.
When you have a reasonable conceptual familiarity with regression, please turn your attention to a most interesting critique of the technique. While specifically anchored within the policy sciences context, the critique applies equally well to all managerial research that purports to offer guidance on action based on findings from regression analyses. It's important to understand the nature of their reservations about the approach.
Now that you know what the problems are, it's time to take a look at some sample research and see if it holds up under the critique. You are to pick one respectable study in an area of interest to you that uses multiple regression as a primary analytical strategy. You have the following three choices; pick one (of course, nothing's stopping you from reading the other two as well, but it's not necessary for the purpose of this exercise):
Assignment Expectations
A critique is a review and commentary on a particular article or piece of research. It is not necessarily critical in the negative sense, although you may need to comment negatively on some aspects; both positive and negative aspects should be treated. Just because something appears in print, even in an A-list journal, does not make it free from possible errors or beyond criticism; nothing should be necessarily taken at face value. Your informed commentary and analysis is as important as your summary of the material in the article
-- simply repeating what the article says does not constitute an adequate critique. You are also expected to use the terminology of regression correctly and clearly.
In this case, your critique should address at least the following issues, as well as any other points that you find relevant and worthy of comment:
- A brief summary of the paper: its purposes, methods, and reported findings
- The use of regression in the data analysis, and its relation (if any) to other kinds of analytical and/or statistical methods
- The nature of the data used, and the degree to which the data met the requirements for regression as described by Garson (n.d.) and Porter et al (1981).
- The appropriateness of the interpretations of coefficients developed in the analysis
- The overall applicability of the Porter et al. (1981)'s critique to this study - does their approach call it into question, or does it manage to evade their critique? How, in either case?
- Your overall assessment of the utility of regression as an analytical strategy in the kind of research you are contemplating for your dissertation and beyond, and your ideas for overcoming the problems raised for this strategy by Porter et al.
- Remember, this is an applied statistics course. Thus, explaining the statistical tools, interpreting coefficients, and understanding the properties of the data analysis are particularly important, and need your careful thought and comment, not just general or generic observations.
- You are expected to present your critique in appropriate academic form and language, with citations to the readings where needed.