(1) Please make and display your name cards!
(2) Make sure you're on Slack:
https://ledeprogram.slack.com/
(3) Keep PollEverywhere open
If you have any questions, just raise your hand 🖐!
Welcome! Let's get rolling!
🗝 Key Lessons
Being able to identify the:
- Limitations of the data
- Limitations of your approach
- Limitations of your tools
- Limitations of the deadline
And being able to communicate those effectively
are ALSO keys to being able to pitch a data-driven story
correlation != causation
duh...right?
correlation ≠ causation
1. coincidence
3. common cause
2. causality reversed
duh...right?
Communicating Correlation
Correlation doesn't imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing 'look over there'.
Correlation ≠ Causation
What is the role of reporting?
Final Project Pitch
- Am I making a causal claim?
-
What is the strongest claim I can responsibly make given my
- data
- approach
- deadline
-
What is the strongest claim I can responsibly make given my
What is the "best case scenario" headline?
Is this hypothetical "best case scenario" article newsworthy?
- What does the story look like without the causal claim?
Let's discuss some pitches:
Will brighter prospects of congestion pricing spook car buyers and sellers in New York?
Let's discuss some pitches:
The impact of COVID-19 on garbage collection and sanitation in South Bronx
Let's discuss some pitches:
College Football in the Time of Covid: How Home Games Have Impacted College Towns in 2020 and 2021
What is a regression?
(Linear regression)
When do I need a regression?
- When you want observe the relationships between two or more variables...and summary stats / data viz are not good enough tools
- When there are a lot of variables that interact with each other
- When there are lots of possible things that could explain variance in one variable...
⚠️ Your dataset may not come with the the "inputs" to the regression...this could lead you to make bad assumptions and tell a false narrative!
How do I communicate regression analysis?
A regression is a type of model
There are other types of regressions and other types of models.
Linear Regression
Multiple Linear Regression
Logistic Regression
Etc...other types of models that are not regressions...
| Construct | Measurement |
|---|---|
| How well you have grasped the learning objectives | 1-100 grade, letter grade, emojis, pass/fail |
| What people think about a movie | 1-5 star rating or paragraph movie review |
| ... | |
| ... | |
| How reliable a pollster is | ? |
What you're trying to measure
vs
How you're measuring it ⚠️
Empirical / quantitative social science on deadline
- Andrew Flowers (Former Quant Editor @ FiveThirtyEight)
Empirical / quantitative social science on deadline
- Andrew Flowers (Former Quant Editor @ FiveThirtyEight)
Data Journalism
- Academic timelines
- Build expertise --> publish
- Coming up with new findings / methodologies
Academic Social Science
- Working on a news deadline
- Publish --> Expertise --> Publish
- Contextualizing findings, discussing whether they still hold with the latest data
- Using well known and tested methodologies
- Work in consultation with academic social scientists
🗝 Key Lessons
Being able to identify the:
- Limitations of the data
- Limitations of your approach
- Limitations of your tools
- Limitations of the deadline
And being able to communicate those effectively
Pair Programming Data Analysis
