1

HCS 7310 Advanced Research Methods:

Secondary Data Analysis Using Public Access Data Sets

Fall 2005
Classroom: Callier North 1.516 and MP2.220
Instructor: Margaret Tresch Owen
Office: GR 4.826
Office Hours: Thursdays 10:00 – 11:30am and by appointment
Email: mowen@utdallas.edu
Phone: 972-883-6876

Course Description: In this course you will learn to how to utilize public data sets to address
research questions in psychological science. You will learn about various extant public data sets
pertinent to developmental psychology and how they can be utilized to address various research
questions. Most of the course will focus on learning how to use longitudinal data from the National
Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Study of Early Child Care and Youth
Development. SECCYD data from 1,364 families have been collected since their infants’ birth in
1991. The study covers demographic, family, maternal, paternal, and child care provider, teacher,
school and classroom characteristics; child social and emotional outcomes; language development;
cognitive skills; school readiness; growth and health measures; school achievement; and much more.
It includes data collected by observation, testing, face-to-face and phone interviews, and
questionnaires. The data sets of the SECCYD have recently become available for public use. There is
extensive documentation available. This course is designed to introduce the SECCYD study and its
available data bases (currently from birth through the fifth grade of school) so that you can
independently use the NICHD SECCYD data bases for original scholarship and publications.

Over the semester you will produce (1) a proposal for an original study focused on an aspect of child
development through secondary data analyses of the SECCYD data, (2) IRB approval for conducting
your proposed study, (3) data analyses of your study questions using the SECCYD data, and (4) a draft
of a research paper prepared for submission to a professional journal.

Course Requirements:
The class will meet 6 times in the computer lab in MP2.220: 9/12, 9/26, 10/10, 10/17, 10/24, and
11/14. You will receive CD-ROMs containing the public data sets of the NICHD Study of Early Child
Care and Youth Development and extensive data documentation.

Course grades will be given based on (1) class participation (proposal presentation, completion of
class data set formation and analysis exercises, contributions to and discussion of proposal
presentations)—25%, (2) IRB application—10%, and (3) research paper—65%, which will be
submitted in stages with feedback provided as needed.

Recommended references:

Cody, R.P., & Smith, J.K. (2006). Applied statistics and the SAS programming language. Fifth
edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Aiken, L.S. & West, S.G. (1991). Multiple Regression: Testing and Interpreting Interactions.
Newbury Park, NJ: Sage.

American Psychological Association Publication Manual and/or writer’s handbook

http://www.wisc.edu/writing/Handbook/DocAPAReferences_Book.html
 2

NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development website

http://secc.rti.org

If the assigned articles aren’t available electronically through the UTD library, I will post them on
Blackboard.

Class Schedule:

August 22 Overview of course

Public access data sets for psychological research: pros and cons
Widely used public data sets
NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development Phase I and Phase II data
sets and documentation

August 29 NICHD SECCYD: Organization of the data sets

Overview of family data
Overview of demographic data

Exercises: Searching for variables and their documentation on the

NICHD SECCYD Phase I CD-ROM: measures of
depression; measures of parenting

NICHD Early Child Care Research Network. (2001). Nonmaternal care and family factors in
early development: An overvie w of the NICHD Study of Early Child Care. Journal of
Applied Developmental Psychology, 22, 457-492.

Sept. 5 Labor Day

Sept. 12* NICHD SECCYD: Overview of child care

Overview of school context data

Exercises: Identifying subsets of the participants: (1) Children

whose parents separate or divorce; (2) children who
experience multiple simultaneous child care
arrangements; (3) mothers with clinical levels of
depressive symptoms, married vs. single.

Burchinal, M., & Nelson, L. (2000). Family selection and child care experiences:
Implications for studies of child outcomes. Early Childhood Research
Quarterly, 15, 385-411.
Hamre, B. & Pianta, R. (in press). Can instructional and emotional support in the first grade
classroom make a difference for children at risk of school failure? Child Development
.[posted on Blackboard]
NICHD ECCRN. (1999). Chronicity of maternal depressive symptoms, maternal sensitivity,
and child functioning at 36 months. Developmental Psycholo gy, 35, 1297-1310.

Sept. 19 NICHD SECCYD: Overview of child outcome data

Overview of health data
 3

Exercises: Identifying longitudinal measures of child outcomes.

Program language to form an analysis data set from
multiple data sets.

NICHD ECCRN (2005). Duration and developmental timing of poverty and children’s
cognitive and social development from birth through third grade. Child Development,
76, 795-810.

Sept. 26* Due: 2-5 pp. proposal of study question(s) and IRB application

Presentations and discussion of study proposals

Exercises: Form analysis data set and examine variable descriptives

Oct. 3 Due: IRB application submitted

Data Analytic Axioms: Are things we know really so?

Effect sizes: APA publication recommendations

McCartney, K. & Rosenthal, R. (2000). Effect size, practical importance, and social policy for
children. Child Development, 71, 173-180.
Kline, R.B. (2004). Parametric effect size indexes. Beyond significance testing. (pp. 95-143).
Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.

Oct. 10* Due: Draft Method section: Participants

Exercises: Measure instrumentation and data documentation

Attrition analyses
Determining selection factors, controls (if relevant)

Oct. 17* Due: Draft Method section: Procedure and Measures

Longitudinal data analysis: Growth trajectories

Raudenbush, S.W. (2001).Comparing personal trajectories and drawing causal inferences from
longitudinal data. Annual Review of Psychology, 52, 501-525.

Oct. 24* Due: Plan for data analysis (a work order)

Exercises: Data analysis for paper

Multiple regression analyses and testing interactions

Aiken, L.S. & West, S.G. (1991). Multiple Regression: Testing and Interpreting Interactions.
Newbury Park, NJ: Sage.
Behrens, J.T., & Yu, C.H. The visualization of multi-way interactions and higher-order terms
in multiple regression. Paper presented at 1994 meetings of the Psychometric Society.
http://www.creative-wisdom.com/pub/psychometric/psychometric.html

Oct. 31 Due: Draft Introduction to paper

 4

Exercises: Mediation analysis

Baron, R. M., & Kenny, D. A. (1986). The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social
psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 1173-1182.

Mediation of associations and tests of mediation

http://www.unc.edu/~preacher/sobel/sobel.htm

Nov. 7 Due: Tabled Results, summary of findings

Simulated scores to understand additive effects of key predictors

Brooks-Gunn, J., Han, W., & Waldfogel, J. (2002). Maternal employment and child cognitive
outcomes in the first three years of life: The NICHD Study of Early Child Care. Child
Development, 73, 1052-1072.

Nov. 14* Due: 500-word abstract for conference submission

Conferencing on Results sections

Follow-up analyses

Small grant funding for secondary data analysis

http://grants.nih.gov/grants/funding/r03.htm
http://grants1.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-05-093.html

Nov. 21 Due: Draft of Discussion

Presentations of study findings

Nov. 29 Due: Entire Paper

Summary of Assignment Due Dates

Sept 26 2-6 pp. proposal of study question(s) (Introduction to study)

Study proposals presented (10 minutes)
Oct 3 IRB proposal
Oct 10 Draft of Method section: Participants
Oct 17 Draft of Method section: Measures
Oct 24 Analysis plan
Oct 31 Draft of Introduction
Nov 7 Tabled Results, summary of findings
Nov 14 500-word Conference submission
Nov 21 Draft of Discussion
Nov 29 Entire Paper