DAMCA Companion

Introduction

This under construction site is the result of my engagement with Data Analysis: A Model Comparison Approach to Regression, ANOVA, and Beyond by Josh Correll, Abigail M. Folberg, Charles M. Judd, Gary H. McClelland, Carey S. Ryan.

The book is pretty good1 and I chose it recently as it “thinks” about models in the unified way I have tried to teach students. I think it’s also pitched at a good level for graduate students who don’t have much stats background and probably for advanced social/behavioral science undergrads (though I haven’t taught them this yet).

1 I have a few beefs with the book: the interpretation of odds ratios, the discussion of variable transformations via the ladder of powers (no thanks), and the lack of attention to contingency tables come to mind. But overall, the book has been a good interlocutor so far.

I wanted to supplement the text myself for three main reasons:

  1. The book itself doesn’t have any code (which is good!) and the accompanying instructor/student resources are written in base R. I wanted to translate things to tidyverse style to fit my own and my students’ preferred usage.

  2. The book focuses on analytical approaches whereas I find it useful to demonstrate most concepts using simulations. I think this is easier for people who don’t have a strong math background.

  3. I wanted a reason to fool around systematically with {tinyplot}. I am generally a {ggplot2} person, but I am intrigued by this package. And now, thanks to Claude (and a few hours of my own tinkering), I also have {ggplot2} versions of almost all the plots as well.

One more thing: as this document has grown, I’ve added a several sections and subsections marked with a *, that indicate that I’m adding stuff that’s not in the book. I now have a lot of that content which I hope people will find useful.