Promoting ICPSR: Resources for Use in Undergraduate Instruction

Lunch & LearnFebruary 24, 2010

Lynette Hoelter

Overview of the Presentation

• Why should I care about this?• Why does ICPSR care about

undergraduate education?• Who else cares, and why? • So… get to the tools already!

– Specifically for the classroom– Adapting general ICPSR features for

teaching

• The reward: Student opportunities

I just came for the free lunch…

• Two purposes of this presentation– Sharing what is going on in Instructional

Resources & Development • Lynette Hoelter, Sue Hodge, Andrea Benjamin,

Frederique Laubepin, Christopher Ward

– Introducing tools that can be shared when doing booth exhibits, ICPSR presentations, and even writing proposals

Why Undergrad Education?

• More ICPSR usage by undergrads • Focus on quantitative literacy• Faculty familiar with ICPSR but unsure

how to introduce data to undergraduates

• Desire to be useful to a broader range of types of institutions (BA, community colleges)

Who Cares?

• Faculty– Desire to use data in instruction but many barriers

• Funders– Creates a larger potential audience for data

collection efforts

• (First-year) Students– Brings course content to life

Response at conferences/on campuses shows much interest

Why Bother with Data?

• Including research/data analysis– Piques student interest– Engages students with the discipline

more fully • prevents some of the feeling of

“disconnect” between substantive and technical courses

– Fosters quantitative literacy skills

Potential Obstacles

• Large classes• Finding appropriate data and

creating exercises• Examples that don’t “work” in class• Student access to/knowledge of

statistical software

ICPSR’s Response

• OR sabbatical projects– Exploring Data Through Research Literature– Investigating Community and Social Capital

• Supplementary Empirical Teaching Units in Political Science (SETUPS2008)

• Online Learning Center (OLC)• National Science Foundation Awards

– TeachingWithData.org (Alter, PI)– Infusing Quantitative Literacy (Assessment;

Alter, Co-PI)

Exploring Data Through Research Literature

Investigating Community and Social Capital

SETUPS 2008

Online Learning Center

Frequency Distribution

Cells contain:-Column percent-Weighted N

INCOME

1LESS THAN $24,000

2$24,000-$49,999

3$50,000-$99,999

4MORE THAN $100,000

ROWTOTAL

YEARGAMB

0: Didn't gamble in past year

32.415,759,745

25.113,001,616

19.68,868,472

24.54,030,466

25.741,660,300

1: Gambled in past year

67.632,885,485

74.938,713,040

80.436,491,643

75.512,402,378

74.3120,492,546

COL TOTAL100.0

48,645,230100.0

51,714,657100.0

45,360,115100.0

16,432,844100.0

162,152,846

TeachingWithData.org

Research and Teaching

• Bibliography of Related Literature• Topical archives• Social Science Variables Database• Online analysis package (SDA)• Other file formats (SPSS, SAS, Stata)• Finding and downloading data

Student Opportunities

•Summer internship program•Student paper competitions•Undergraduate•Master’s•RCMD

For More Information:

Lynette Hoelter Instructional Resources & Development

lhoelter@umich.edu