Data Analytics for the Social Sciences

Data Analytics for the Social Sciences is an introductory, graduate-level treatment of data analytics for social science. It features applications in the R language, arguably the fastest growing and leading statistical tool for researchers. The book starts with an ethics chapter on the uses and potential abuses of data analytics. Chapters 2 and 3 show how to implement a broad range of statistical procedures in R. Chapters 4 and 5 deal with regression and classification trees and with random forests. Chapter 6 deals with machine learning models and the "e;caret"e; package, which makes available to the researcher hundreds of models. Chapter 7 deals with neural network analysis, and Chapter 8 deals with network analysis and visualization of network data. A final chapter treats text analysis, including web scraping, comparative word frequency tables, word clouds, word maps, sentiment analysis, topic analysis, and more. All empirical chapters have two "e;Quick Start"e; exercises designed to allow quick immersion in chapter topics, followed by "e;In Depth"e; coverage. Data are available for all examples and runnable R code is provided in a "e;Command Summary"e;. An appendix provides an extended tutorial on R and RStudio. Almost 30 online supplements provide information for the complete book, "e;books within the book"e; on a variety of topics, such as agent-based modeling. Rather than focusing on equations, derivations, and proofs, this book emphasizes hands-on obtaining of output for various social science models and how to interpret the output. It is suitable for all advanced level undergraduate and graduate students learning statistical data analysis.