Assignment 1

For this first assignment, I will ask you to describe a research question and choose a database to work with. We will revise your research question over the coming months, so consider this just a first draft. For next week, write a one page summary that contains the following:

• A problem statement: what is the issue and why is it important?
• A research question: ask a question that will help to illuminate the problem. Your research question should include the population under study, the unit of analysis, and the dependent and independent variables.
• The data that you wish to use to analyze this question, and if possible, some of the specific variables which you would like to use.

As mentioned, I will ask you to revise this substantially over the course of the semester, so at this point, just do your best to create such a statement.

You will need to know about the questions that were asked to develop the Early Childhood Longitudinal Program, the Education Longitudinal Study, the High School Longitudinal Study or the Programme for International Student Assessment. You can find them here:

ECLS

ELS

HSLS

PISA

Taking a look at these questionnaires will help to give you an idea of which research questions you may be able to answer using these databases. You will need your selected dataset to complete assignments for the course. The first assignment based on these will be due in two weeks.

During the next week, you should ensure that you have access to Stata and the relevant data. You can download the datasets from the class website. Please do so before the next class meeting. Go ahead an download them all so that we can use them in class.