HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
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Date:         Thu, 27 Aug 1992 10:49:44 JST
From:         "john.derrick.shillaw" <jds@SAKURA.CC.TSUKUBA.AC.JP>
Subject:      Advice on language test analysis needed

I'm working on research into the effectiveness of the different English
language tests that we use in the Center where I work and although I
have some experience in statistics, I have three problems where I'm out
of my depth.  I'd be very grateful for advice on the following
questions.  For analysis, I have access to SPSS/PC 3.0 and Testfact
(Scientific Software).

1.  I have 4 parallel tests of listening, each administered to a sample
of the total population, each sample balanced for ability.  Each test is
made up of 3 sub-tests identical in format and length.  I have
correlated the 3 sub-tests on each test and corrected for attenuation.
I now want to get the average correlation from the sub-tests (Form A,
part 1 + Form B, part 1 ...) on the 4 tests to get some idea of the
relationship between the sub-tests for the total population.  Is this
valid or is some further correction necessary?

2.  If I want to regress the 3 sub-tests on the test total, a) how can I
get around the problem that part 2 on the test is only half the number
of items of the other two parts and therefore its contribution to the
total will automatically be reduced? and b) more generally, is there a
way of minimizing the relationship between the dependent and independent
variables?

3.  If I want to test for unidimensionality of trait on the listening
tests, should a factor analysis be done on the item level matrix, or on
the scores on the 3 sub-tests?


Could somebody please tell me the BITNET address for the EDSTAT-L
listserver.  I subscribed some months back, then set the mail off for
the vacation and now I've lost the address!

Thanks in advance for the help.

======================================================================
John Shillaw
Associate Professor
Foreign Language Center
University of Tsukuba
Ibaraki-ken
Japan
e-mail: jds@sakura.cc.tsukuba.ac.jp
fax:  +81-(0)298-53-6616
======================================================================
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Date:         Mon, 31 Aug 1992 11:37:27 CET
From:         Joop Hox <A716HOX@HASARA11.BITNET>
Subject:      correction/meta analysis??

Sorry, that was Just Jensen asking the question, and Jerry Dallal suggesting
outside help. I certainly agree with Jerry; if the experiments are expensive,
you don't want to loose analysis power and sophistication by using less than
optimal techniques.

Joop Hox
From: jerry@nutmeg.hnrc.tufts.edu (Jerry Dallal)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.stat-l
Subject: Re: election polls
Date: 2 Sep 92 14:52:12 GMT
Organization: USDA HNRC at Tufts University

In article <STAT-L%92090112551097@VM1.MCGILL.CA>, KHACKER@NMSUVM1.BITNET (Kenneth L. Hacker, Ph.D.,Communication) writes:
> I am interested in what statisticians think about the current wave of
> election polls.  Specifically, how should the media and public make
> sense out of them, particulary in light of the fact that they widely
> diverge, yet claim to be based on valid random sampling techniques.
> Is the divergence a function of question differences?   

Some of it.  Timing has a lot to do with it, too.  Even though 2 polls may
be taken close together, during the presidential campaign, major "events"
happen at a fast and furious rate.  There's the issue of how the pollsters
identify "likely voters," and may other issues, besides.

You might take a look at Wheeler, Michael (1976), "Lies, Damn Lies, and 
Statistics:  The Manipulation of Public Opinion in America."  New York:  
Liveright.
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.stat-l
Date:         Thu, 3 Sep 1992 10:51:10 GMT
From:         Ronan M Conroy <RCONROY@IRLEARN.UCD.IE>
Subject:      ordinal, interval, cautions

The classic 5-point scale rangine from "agree strongly" to
"disagree strongly" does not meet the assumptions of equal-interval
scales, since the scale steps do not correspond to increases in
a defined unit of anything. More important, however, is that
the use of these scales correlates with things like education
and social class - two tendencies, in particular, are worth
noting: one is for better-educated people to make more use of
the extremes of the scale, and the other is for a response set
to set in, so that responses to later items are patterened by
responses to earlier ones (if you start with a few "don't know"
items, you'll be more likely to use the "don't know" box in later
items, for instance). For these reasons, I usually recommend
rescaling bunches of 5-point items as 2-point, by grouping
together all the responses that represent what you are interested
in and scoring them as '1', and putting everything else as '0'.
If you are intested in the presence of significant levels of
depression, for example, you could score a 1 for any item agreeing
with a 'depressed' statement or disagreeing with a 'cheerful' one.

I am very much against adding responses on the 5-point scale, since,
if it isn't an interval scale, you can't do addition on it. The 1/0
system allows you to add items and explain what you've done.

ronan
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Date:         Wed, 2 Sep 1992 12:48:00 PDT
From:         "Peter A. Lachenbruch" <IARSPAL@UCLAMVS.BITNET>
Subject:      unequal variances

There is another aspect to the unequal variance problem - that of power under
alternatives. In a recent study, (Comm. Stat., 1991) I compared the size and
power of the F, Kruskal-Wallis, and Normal Scores tests when variances were un-
equal. The F test was badly hurt, but the KW and NS tests were relatively un-
affected. I suspect that the rank transformation will work pretty well in most
anova problems.
Tony
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Date:         Tue, 25 Aug 1992 15:16:21 -0700
From:         JAMES@UCRAC1.UCR.EDU
Subject:      RE: tests for variance homogeneity
X-To:         STAT-L@VM1.MCGILL.CA

a quick and dirty test is the hartley's f-max test. Bartlett's test is
more refined. both are easy to do in sas (in fact there is a sample
program to the latter in sas)
james s
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.stat-l
Date:         Fri, 28 Aug 1992 09:26:43 +1000
From:         alan@DMSMELB.MEL.DMS.CSIRO.AU
Subject:      Re: Available Good Stat Software for DOS/Windows for Course Work
X-To:         JENSEN@UTAHCCA.BITNET, STAT-L@vm1.mcgill.ca
              27 Aug 92 16:23:00 MST."
              <9208272225.AA25017@dmsmelb.mel.dms.CSIRO.AU>

Jeff,
My recommendation for teaching purposes is Statistix.   It is one of the
easiest of the menu-driven packages to use - i.e. you don't need to learn
a language as with MYSTAT, Minitab, etc.   It has graphics now and can accept
non-numeric data.   The one-off price is now US$495, but there are very
generous discounts for educational purposes, multiple purchases and networks.

I have seen the use of Minitab for teaching, where the students put all of
their effort into learning the language.   The exam question which said
`Here is the output from Minitab.   Please interpret it for a non-statistician'
defeated most of the students.   They knew how to use Minitab, but not what
the results meant.

Alan Miller, Quality Improvement Project
CSIRO Division of Mathematics & Statistics, Melbourne, Australia
Phone: +61 3 542-2266   Fax: +61 3 542-2474  E-mail: alan@mel.dms.csiro.au
Mail: CSIRO DMS, Private Bag 10, Clayton, Vic. 3168, Australia
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Date:         Fri, 4 Sep 1992 10:48:42 -0700
From:         JAMES@UCRAC1.UCR.EDU
Subject:      RE: Eigen Vector algorithms

LINPACK & IMSL would seem like good starting points fro this sort of thing.
Have you consulted them? Also, texts like Golub's Matrix Computations or
Numerical Recipes in X probably have sufficient detail for one to
perform these computations in GAUSS or SAS/IML. A little more information on
the type of matrices you are dealing with wouldn't hurt either.

james ssemakula
u.c riverside

-------------------------original message---------------------------------
Is anyone aware of an eigen value/vector routine superior to Ortega's (1967)
GIVHO subroutine based on the Givens-Householder method for symmetric
matrices?  It would seem that improvements must have happened over the
intervening quarter-century.  Code examples are welcome.
TIA John R. Vokey <vokey@hg.uleth.ca>
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.stat-l
Date:         Wed, 26 Aug 1992 15:45:00 EST
From:         LEGAULT@PHS.BGSM.WFU.EDU
Subject:      bivariate survival analysis
X-To:         stat-l@vm1.mcgill.ca

I am looking for references on bivariate survival analysis or "mixed"
survival. By "mixed" I mean that the data is univariate for some patients
and bivariate for others. I explain:
         I am interested in time to cataract extraction.
         There are 342 eyes but 276 patients: 210 patients had a
         cataract on one eye and 66 patients had a cataract on
         each eye. For those 66 patients, the two eyes are obviously
         not independent.
Thanks in advance for your ideas.

C. Legault
Xref: sparky bit.listserv.stat-l:1482 sci.math.stat:1793
From: ph@physiology.oxford.ac.uk (Patrick Haggard)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.stat-l,sci.math.stat
Subject: Degrees of freedom of probit estimates
Date: 3 Sep 92 12:42:10 GMT
Organization: Physiology Department, Oxford University, Oxford, UK.
Originator: ph@galen.physiol


I have some psychophysical yes/no response data to 6 stimulus levels, with
40 responses at each level. I have analysed the results
using  probit max. likelihood estimates in SAS.  This gives
me a mean and 95% confidence limits for the threshold value
of the stimulus variable (i.e., the thing you're making yes/no
judgements about).  I presume it does this by estimating a parametric
distribution underlying the binary response data.

	Now I want to do a pairwise comparison between the mean thresholds
under two different conditions (with and without a coloured filter).  
Normally, I would use a simple t-test, but SAS won't give me the 
degrees of freedom associated with each mean threshold.  Can one
calculate the degrees of freedom of the mean from the number of binary
responses?  Or is there a better way of testing the hypothesis that
two mean thresholds are significantly different?

Many thanks

------------------------------------------------------------

Patrick Haggard,
Oxford University Laboratory of Physiology,
Parks Road,
Oxford,
OX1 3PT
England

Tel. (0865) 272116
Fax. (0865) 272469
Email (JANET): ph@uk.ac.ox.physiol
------------------------------------------------------------
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Organization: National Inst. of Animal Science, Denmark
X-Acknowledge-To: <LOFJUST@vm.uni-c.dk>
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.stat-l
Date:         Wed, 2 Sep 1992 08:17:25 DNT
From:         Just Jensen <LOFJUST@VM.UNI-C.DK>
Subject:      Metaanalysis Flame

Being back after I a couple of days ago posted a question on
metaanalysis I am amazed of how many suggestions you can get over the net
in a very short time. I will try to utilize the offers for help shortly.

HOWEVER:
On the subject of Metaanalysis Jerry Dallal writes ... 'pointing you to a
set of references regarding metaanalysis would be doing you more of a
disservice than a service' and then suggests to hire a statistician
to ensure an optimum solution to the problem om combining data from
several sources.

I have to say that i think that the above is a bunch of 'malarky'. I
thing that any researcher want ot hire as much help as possible but the
treatment of a collection af data can only be the responsibility of
the rersearcher that
is going to write a publication from those data. The more the researcher
knows on statistics the better the communication between the reseacher and
his/hers advisers (here the statistician). Having said that even a
statistician dosn't know everything. Not even on statistics! Show me
one that claims that and I wil show you .....<<< 'ahem never mind'.

I therefore believe that giving references to more information is always
advantageous. It is NOT possible from a short posting to know the
levels of statistics known by the poster. I for myself don't  mind to
read precicily defined statistical litterature.

=========================================================================
Just Jensen                           | NN     N IIIII     A        SSSS
National Institute of Animal Science  | N N    N   I      A A      S    S
Research Centre Foulum                | N  N   N   I     A   A      SS
Dept. of Research in Cattle and Sheep | N   N  N   I    AAAAAAA       SS
P.O. Box 39                           | N    N N   I    A     A    S    S
8830 Tjele                            | NN    NN IIIII  AA   AA     SSSS
Denmark                               |==================================
                                      |
Ph: 45 89 99 19 00   (Via operator)   |
    45 89 99 13 12   (Direct)         |
Fax:45 89 99 19 19                    |
    45 86 65 24 36   (Home)
=========================================================================
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.stat-l
Date:         Thu, 27 Aug 1992 08:58:39 EDT
From:         Stephen Salbod <SALBOD1@PACEVM.BITNET>
Subject:      probability

I just read the lastest from Wai Ming: Why does Straw List come to mind?

  K   K
    *  *
 K   E * K        PRODUCED AND DIRECTED BY STEPHEN SALBOD
   K   K            ON LOCATION AT PACE UNIVERSITY, NY
*

"A KLINGON DREAM"
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.stat-l
Date:         Wed, 2 Sep 1992 07:37:00 EST
From:         LXP6@ATSDHS2.EM.CDC.GOV
Subject:      "polls" does not equate to Statistics

I thought that this was supposed to be a statistical bulletin board.

The 'gibberish' in the original message is NOT the mathematical abstraction
of repeated sampling, but the lack of distinction between an expected outcome
and actual outcomes.  It may be easier to visualize someone flipping a coin
six times.  The expected number of heads in six flips of a fair coin is
three.   But the actual observed number may be as small as 0 or as great as 6
(each could occur with a probability of _________).

Clearly, statistics must be applied not in a vacuum but in the milieu of a
real world.  BUT...

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
REPLY FROM: Pallos, L. Laszlo
Date:         Wed, 2 Sep 1992 01:30:56 EDT
Subject:      RE:  Election polls

>%Each poll has a level of reliability (something like +-4% 95 times out of
>%100).  What this means is that if we were to repeat the poll 100 times, the
                                               ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>%actual (population) percentage of voters supporting Clinton would lie in
>%the range 56% +- 4% (or 52% to 60%) in the first poll and 48% +- 4% (or 44%
>%to 52%) in 95 out of the 100 polls taken.

I wonder if Clinton and Bush are frequentists...?   They'd love to be able
to repeat the poll 100 times.  If they had that kind of money I suspect
they'd have pulled out long ago like the other billionaire who decided
that politics wasn't as much fun as it seemed at first.

Ahhh, the states of the world required to have this repeated sampling
gibberish be true.... :-)
^^^^^^^^^
               Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs,
               Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544
               and
               Department of Political Science, University of Rochester,
               Rochester, NY
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Date:         Tue, 1 Sep 1992 16:11:02 EDT
From:         EYF@NIHCU.BITNET
Subject: Re: election polls
X-To:         KHACKER@NMSUVM1.BITNET, STAT-L@MCGILL1.BITNET

> From:         "Kenneth L. Hacker, Ph.D.,
>               Communication" <KHACKER@NMSUVM1.BITNET>
> Subject:      election polls
>
> I am interested in what statisticians think about the current wave of
> election polls.  Specifically, how should the media and public make
> sense out of them, particulary in light of the fact that they widely
> diverge, yet claim to be based on valid random sampling techniques.
> Is the divergence a function of question differences?   Is it possible
> to take a set of poll results and compute a trend that represents what
> call public opinion?   It is easy to attribute poll data variation done
> at different times to "voter volatility," but what about the variation
> with polls done at the same time?   For example, the latest ABC poll shows
> Clinton at 56 and Bush at 36, while the Time/CNN poll shows Clinton at
> 48 and Bush at 40.  Any ideas about the statistical interpretations of
> such data are greatly appreciated.   Ken Hacker, Dept of Communication,
> New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM 88003.


     I'm afraid that my answer comes from party sponsored
campaign management training 15 years ago rather than my
academic training, but I think the differences between polls
can usually be explained by dome combination of the following
factors:
     a.  Is the sample considered to be all adults, all
registered voters, or those most likely to vote?
     b.  Was the poll conducted by telephone or door to door
interviews?  Each method has a different type of response
bias and sample selection problems which can dealt with via
various techniques.
     c.  What questions were asked prior to the presidential
preference question?  In the current election, for example,
questions dealing with the role of the president as Commander-
in-Chief might make an individual more disposed to choose Bush.

I'm sure that anyone on this list with more recent experience
with political polls could easily add other possible differences
to this list.

Mark Regets
EYF@NIHCU
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.stat-l
Date:         Fri, 28 Aug 1992 14:12:37 GMT
From:         Ronan M Conroy <RCONROY@IRLEARN.UCD.IE>
Subject:      The ten-cent stats package

Speak of the devil! I just got a flyer for an MS-DOS
package called KWIKSTAT 3 (I suppose names are limited to 8 chars...)
which comes in ten-packs for US$499 in the basic version and
$35 for add-ons to do anova and time series. It s oriented to
teaching and has just (June 19921) won  best maths or engineering
software at the 1992 Shareware Industry Awards.

If you're weeded (oops, I meant to say wedded) to MS-DOS, it would
be worth getting a copy to look at. Send $69 for the basic or
$99 for the Plus version to:
TexasSoft, PO Box 1169, Cedar Hill, Texas 75104 (I thought that was a
Paris postcode...) or telephone 1-800-955-TEXAS (in US) or
214-291-2115 (elsewhere). Fax 214-291-3400. There's a 30-day money
back guarantee, so you can't go wrong.

An alternative:
Get yourself a couple of Macs and Data Desk, and watch the whole
thing take off. Promise!

Disclaimer: I've never seen KWIKSTAT, just passing on info. My
connexion with Data Desk is that I use it teaching.

ronan
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Date:         Tue, 1 Sep 1992 14:45:00 EST
From:         dkw4@NIOSHE2.EM.CDC.GOV
Subject:      Equal sample sizes - unequal variances?
X-To:         STAT-L%MCGILL1.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU

Question - I suspect this will be easy for somebody -

Why does having equal sample sizes mitigate the requirement of equal
variances in an ANOVA/t-test?

Thanks.

Deanna Wild
*-----------------------------------------------------------------*
Deanna Wild
Statistician
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
4676 Columbia Parkway  MS: R-4
Cincinnati, Ohio  45226

INTERNET: DKW4@NIOSHE2.EM.CDC.GOV
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Date:         Tue, 25 Aug 1992 16:05:00 EST
From:         MDA1@NIORDS1.EM.CDC.GOV
Subject:      Stats for MDS/Internet
X-To:         stat-l%mcgill1.bitnet@cunyvm.cuny.edu

I believe that the British Medical Association publishes a book (or books) on
stats written specifically for physicians.  Check out the British Medical
Journal for ads. They definitely used to be advertised there.  I believe the
material is well regarded.

Yes, Internet messages do get on the board.  This one has come via internet.
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.stat-l
From: tft8g@holmes.acc.Virginia.EDU (Timothy F. Tolson)
Subject: Info on package called SUDAN?
Originator: tft8g@holmes.acc.Virginia.EDU
Keywords: SUDAN survival analysis
Organization: University of Virginia
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 18:02:29 GMT

Folks,
   I have a user who is requesting a software package called SUDAN.
She doesn't know where it's from or who makes it.

   She swears that it's the only package that will let her
give different weights to individual variables in a survival analysis.

   Has anyone heard of this package? And know whom I can contact about
getting platform and pricing information.

TIA,
   Tim
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim F. Jost Tolson, Statistical Software Consultant, Academic Computing Ctr.
    Gilmer Hall, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22903-2453
          tft8g@virginia.edu (or .bitnet)           804-924-0628

Newsgroups: bit.listserv.stat-l