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The New Jersey and New York Chapters of the American Association for Public Opinion Research present:

Weighting Survey Data: A Short Course

DATE: Friday November 5, 2010, 1:00-4:00 PM

LOCATION: Robertson Hall, Room 016
Princeton University

Instructor: Karol Krotki, PhD, Senior Research Statistician, RTI International

Non-response continues to be a pervasive and permanent feature of all surveys and data analysts are continuously developing methods for responding to this challenge. Weighting is one of the most commonly used methods for dealing with non-response. In its basic form, weighting is quite straightforward but often causes considerable consternation and confusion, even for experienced data analysts.

The main objective of this short course is to build on the fundamentals of weighting and to delve into the complexities involved in this methodology. The hope is that participants will leave the course feeling sufficiently confident about details of the weighting process to understand how to apply weighting in various survey situations and how to evaluate and critique even sophisticated weighting schemes. As a prerequisite, participants should have had some exposure to survey data either through a formal course or practical work experience. The course is intended for researchers who work extensively with survey data, who have been exposed to the basics of weighting either formally or in practice, and who would like to develop sufficient understanding to be able to program weight adjustment routines.

The course will start with basics like adjusting for unequal probabilities of selection, for variable non-response, and for sample-population differences, i.e., post-stratification. We will then expand on each of these approaches giving real-life examples for each showing how to program the development of weights. For example, we will show how to apply raking (iterative proportional fitting). We will also discuss in detail topics such as the creation of weighting classes, censoring of extreme values, and scaling. The course will elaborate on the impact of weighting on bias and sampling variance and on methods to settle on optimal weighting strategies.

This will not be a technical course and only elementary mathematics and statistics will be necessary to follow the instructor’s agenda. The emphasis will be on real-life examples requiring practical solutions. The presentation will be self-contained and self-explanatory. We will make copies available to participants in hardcopy and electronic formats. Empirical examples, many from real surveys, will be presented and audience participation will be expected and encouraged.

Karol Krotki is a senior research statistician who joined RTI in 2004. His areas of specialization include survey research, social science data analysis, international studies, and demography. He is known nationally for his work in survey sampling, random-digit-dial telephone sampling, weighting, and alternative methods of survey design such as Internet panels. Dr. Krotki has held a number of honorary positions such as president of the Washington Statistical Society (2007-2010) and in 2008 was elected Fellow of the American Statistical Association. He has a number of publications and presentations to his credit, has held a variety of teaching positions, and is fluent in four languages.

Please click here to register for this course. For directions to Robertson Hall, please click here.

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