AQMeN - Applied Quantitative Methods Network

Registration for this event is now closed and we are no longer accepting applications.

Presented by Dr Stephen Tagg (University of Strathclyde) and Professor Brian Francis (Director of NCRM Lancaster-Warwick-Stirling node, Lancaster University)

The course will take place at Strathclyde Business School, University of Strathclyde

Course Content
This two-day course will introduce Cluster Analysis and Latent Class Analysis.  It will involve lectures, examples and lab sessions using SPSS for Cluster Analysis and Latent Gold for Latent Class Analysis.  Issues to be covered will include the selection and pre-processing of cases and variables, selecting the number of clusters and interpretation of the results - profiling and validation  Examples will include recent papers from research areas in the social sciences.  As the course proceeds, the methods introduced will use more complex statistical concepts, but presentations will focus on use and interpretation rather than mathematical detail.

Who should attend?
The course is intended for those using social research methods who wish to explore the contribution of grouping methods to their research goals.

Why attend?
The interpretive-driven nature of grouping methods makes them especially attractive to handle exploratory research within a wide range of disciplines.  The discontinuous nature of the results makes for intuitive interpretation without imposing a continuous and/or dimensional model, as in Factor Analysis or MDS.

• Some forms of cluster analysis are flexibly applicable to a wide range of variables from nominal through to ratio data.  This gives the user a potentially confusing set of options that require understanding of both questions and distance and proximity measures.  Questions of standardisation, comparability of measures and of code categories, add to the choices involved.
• The differentiation of agglomerative and divisive methods will be introduced along with the challenging issue of how to decide on the number of clusters.
• Some grouping techniques provide a grounded basis for aggregating data - and other applications require aggregation before application.
• There are both exploratory and theory-testing ways of applying many grouping methods techniques.

Course Objectives

• To introduce participants to the use of three SPSS clustering techniques and techniques in Latent Gold.
• To understand the rationale for, the form of and the limitations of the main models
• To learn how to choose appropriate programs, and how to choose among the various options in the programs.
• To introduce participants to appropriate skills in interpretation of grouping methods.
• To introduce latent class analysis, goodness of fit and applicability to ordinal and other forms of data.
• To illustrate software for latent class models; covariate models with examples.
• To introduce latent trajectory modelling.

Learning Outcomes
By attending this course you will:

• Gain an understanding of the principles of the methods, underlying assumptions and limitations, necessary pre-processing, model options
• be able to understand the stability of solutions, cope with missing data and understand the options available
• be able to choose between methods for determining the number of groups and to identify class membership.

Prerequisites
The course will be pitched at an intermediate level.  Participants must be competent in the use of a PC and have some experience using SPSS.  All participants must have sufficient elementary algebra to understand formulae for distance and proximity coefficients.  It would be desirable to know levels of measurement and have had some exposure to different types of data such as multiple response, counts and appropriate descriptive and distributional statistics.

Application Process
There are 15 places available on this course.  Places will be allocated following a process of application and priority will be given to students and academic staff in Scotland who meet the selection criteria and for which the course is free to attend.

Non-academics and academics from outside Scotland may apply but there will be a charge to attend as follows:

• Academic students and staff in Scotland - FREE
• Students and Academic staff outside Scotland - £100 (£50 per day)
• Public and Voluntary Sector - £150 (£75 per day)
• Private Sector - £200 (£100 per day)

To apply for the course:

1. Sign up for the event using the link below AND
2. Complete the application form and return to events@aqmen.ac.uk by 5pm on Monday 23rd May.

Download the application form

Successful applicants will be notified by 5pm on Friday 3rd June.

PhD Expenses
PhD students studying in Scotland who live outside Glasgow are eligible to claim for travel, accommodation and subsistence during the event.  Please note that any claims must be discussed with Heather Thomson prior to the event.  Failure to do this may result in us being unable to reimburse you.  AQMeN will only reimburse travel to/from an address in Scotland as provided on the application form.  Travel costs must be kept to a minimum.  Taxis fares will not be reimbursed except in exceptional circumstances where this has been previously approved by AQMeN.  Accommodation will be arranged by AQMeN on a bed and breakfast basis.  Evening meals may be claimed up to the value of £15 excluding alcohol.  Original travel tickets and fully itemised receipts MUST be provided.  Credit card receipts and email booking confirmations will not be accepted by our auditors.

Non-attendance
All AQMeN courses are offered free of charge to PhD students and academics in Scotland; however, the courses are expensive to run, both in terms of time and money, and non-attendance on courses impacts on our ability to complete the programme of training and to adequately evaluate the value of these events.  This is detrimental to the future sustainability of AQMeN as the funding bodies expect full evaluation.

By applying for this course you are making an undertaking to attend the full two days of the course.  Failure to do this may result in you being charged a fee to cover the cost of the course and any accommodation that has been booked.  If after a place is allocated and confirmed you are no longer able to attend, you must notify AQMeN as soon as possible to allow the place to be offered to someone on the waiting list.  Failure to provide advance notification, resulting in the place not being available to another may result in you being charged a fee to cover the cost of the course.