Instructions

You must follow the instructions below to get credits for this assignment.

Q1 Describe the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study that the U.S. Department of Education undertook in the late 1990s.

Hint: Make sure to discuss study’s goal, subjects, and variables in the data.

The goal of the study was to measure academic progress of more than 20,000 kids from kindergarten to 5th grade. The study collected information about each child and their parents, and interviewed each child’s parents.children from different schools across the country were tracked in this experiment. The study analyzed each part of the child’s life in order to see how each aspect could be effecting their academics. The study had many different variables from the parents education, to the child’s home life. Each variable contributed to how well the child was doing in school.

Q2 Describe regression analysis in your own words.

Hint: A correct answer must have a discussion on a main concept of regression, often called as, “all else being equal”, “controlling for other variables”, or “Ceteris paribus”. The author explained this concept using “the circuit board analogy”.

Regression analysis is a study in which researchers look for correlations between different variables in data. For example in this study the researchers looked for the correlation between the child’s academic success and the parents upbringing.

Q3 What is a drawback of regression analysis. What type of questions can regression analysis not answer?

Hint: A correct answer must have a discussion on causality versus correlation.

Regression analysis may not always be completely accurate.It also shows the correlation between variables but does not show the cause.

Q4 What role does the quality of schools play in academic performance of students.

Hint: See page 150.

The quality of the school plays an important role in the academic success of a child. The study proved that a school does seem to have an impact on the child in early years. A lower quality school does not make it easy for the child to do well, but it is not impossible for the child to do well.

Q5 Continued from Q4. How could you control for the quality of schools in the study?

Hint: For this question, you may need additional information in addition to the assigned reading. You may Google search someting like “how does regression control for variables”.

To control the quality of the schools in this study you could divide the kids into 2 groups, 1 being a higher quality school, and another being a lower quality school. You could then see the difference in performance between the 2 groups of kids throughout the years. This would help test whether or not the quality of the school really does make a difference in the end. Having different controlled variables helps you determine whether or not something can really make a difference.

Q6 The author says that regression is more art than science. What does he mean?

I think that the author means that we have to connect the data to paint a bigger picture in the end. Regression is more complex than just numbers and in a way can be looked at as a form of art rather than just numbers and data.

Q7 What are major takeaways from the reading?

This reading showed that there can be many different factors contributing to the academic success of a child. Everything from the quality of a school, to the parents, and home life can effect how well a child does in school. This reading also showed that factors do not always correlate 100% of the time, and data is not always accurate Although regression analysis can at points explain the reasoning for different variables turning out a certain way in the end.

Q8 Hide the messages, but display the code and its results on the webpage.

Hint: Use message, echo and results in the chunk options. Refer to the RMarkdown Reference Guide.

Q9 Display the title and your name correctly at the top of the webpage.

Q10 Use the correct slug.