Quantitude
A podcast dedicated to all things quantitative, ranging from the relevant to the highly irrelevant. Co-hosts Patrick Curran and Greg Hancock talk about serious statistical topics, but without taking themselves too seriously. Think: CarTalk hi-jacked by the two grumpy old guys from the Muppets, grousing about quantitative methods, statistics, and data analysis, all presented to you with the production value of a 6th grade school project. But in a good way.
Episodes
154 episodes
S6E03 Multiple Choice Is ______
In this week's episode Greg and Patrick explore the surprisingly tricky topic of multiple choice items: how to write them, how not to write them, and giving a well written test the respect it deserves. Along the way they also discuss recognizin...
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Season 6
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Episode 3
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39:27
S6E02 Judging Inter-Rater Reliability
In this week's episode Patrick and Greg talk about different ways of assessing inter-rater agreement and reliability among two or more raters and the importance of doing so. Along the way they also discuss the summer Olympics, underdogs, monolo...
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Season 6
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Episode 2
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43:48
S6E01 Growth as a Predictor? Back to School with Ethan McCormick
In this week's episode, the first of Season 6, Greg and Patrick visit with Dr. Ethan McCormick, an Assistant Professor of Educational Statistics and Data Science in the School of Education at the University of Delaware. After catching up on Eth...
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Season 6
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Episode 1
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49:34
S5E25 Is Being a Professor the Right Fit for Me?
In this week’s episode, our 150th and the last of season 5, Greg and Patrick hear from five people at different stages of their academic journey, who share some of their concerns about a career in academia. Along the way we also mention: deaths...
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Season 5
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Episode 25
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52:02
S5E24 Zombie Wheel of Distributions
In this week's episode Patrick and Greg somehow manage to tie together pretending to be sick with game shows with zombies with conspiracy boards to explore the remarkable inter-relations among probability distributions, starting with the Bernou...
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Season 5
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Episode 24
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47:07
S5E23 A Rosetta Stone for DAGs and SEM
In this week's episode Greg and Patrick talk about both structural equation modeling and directed acyclic graphs, or DAGs, where they are similar and where they are different, and try to provide a Rosetta Stone for translating back and forth be...
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Season 5
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Episode 23
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48:56
S5E22 Survival Analysis in the Social Sciences: It's About Time
In this week's episode Patrick and Greg explore the incredibly cool topic of survival analysis, which is a set of techniques that allows for powerful tests of predictors of the amount of time to experiencing an event; yet these models are not o...
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Season 5
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Episode 22
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47:21
S5E21 Multilevel Factor Analysis: But What Do The Factors Mean?!
In this week's episode, Greg and Patrick talk about the challenges of combining confirmatory factor analysis and multilevel data, and the underappreciated but absolutely critical role that theory plays in choosing the proper model for your cons...
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Season 5
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Episode 21
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47:28
S5E20 Local fit...Because Global Fit Measures Suck!
In this week's episode Greg and Patrick discuss the assessment of global vs. local model fit and they argue that although global measures of fit can be useful, carefully assessing local fit may be of much greater importance in practice. Along t...
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Season 5
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Episode 20
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46:21
S5E19 Item Response Theory, Q.E.D.
In this week's episode Patrick and Greg provide an introduction to the Item Response Theory model: what it is, how it relates to traditional factor analysis, and how this modem approach improves upon some of the limitations of classical test th...
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Season 5
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Episode 19
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49:19
S5E18 Probability on Spring Break
In this week’s episode, Patrick and Greg play with some of the basics of probability in the context of some classic, fun, and often counterintuitive examples. Along the way they also discuss arguments with relatives, a feel for the roulet...
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Season 5
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Episode 18
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44:14
S5E17 Classification and Regression Trees with Yi Feng
In this week's episode Greg and Patrick are honored to visit with Yi Feng, a quantitative methodologist at UCLA, as she helps them understand classification and regression tree analysis. She describes the various ways in which these models can ...
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Season 5
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Episode 17
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50:46
S5E16 Simpson's Paradox
In this week's episode Greg and Patrick talk about Simpson’s Paradox: what it is, examples of where it occurs in real life, and why we might not really need to think about it as a paradox at all. Along the way they also discuss Apple Visi...
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33:43
S5E15 Classical Test Theory (in bed)
In this week's episode Greg and Patrick take a walk down memory lane to rediscover classical test theory, although they revisit this through the lens of modern latent variable models. They describe how these classical methods are actually...
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Season 5
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Episode 15
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49:51
S5E14 Regression to the Mean
In this week's episode Patrick and Greg launch a new occasional series called Stuff You Should Know. The topic for today is regression to the mean: what the heck is it, how does it arise in every day life, and what can we do about it. Along the...
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Season 5
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Episode 14
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34:46
S5E13 The Confidence Interval's Tale
In this week's episode Greg and Patrick talk about confidence intervals: symmetric and asymmetric, asymptotic and bootstrapped, how to interpret them, and how not to interpret them. Along the way they also mention tire pressure gauge mysteries,...
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Season 5
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Episode 13
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47:04
S5E12 Meta-Analysis With Paschal Sheeran
In this week's episode Patrick and Greg have great fun talking about meta-analysis with Paschal Sheeran, a social psychologist from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He describes what meta-analysis is, what it offers, and how to ...
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Season 5
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Episode 12
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43:11
S5E11 Statistical Ideas That Die Hard
In this week's episode, marking the fifth Quantitude Holiday Celebration, Greg and Patrick argue about their favorite holiday movies, including whether Die Hard counts as one or not; they then proceed to discuss several statistical ideas that a...
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Season 5
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Episode 11
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44:06
S5E10 Nonlinear Latent Growth Curve Models (Taylor's Version)
In this week's episode Greg and Patrick explore alternative parameterizations of the SEM-based latent curve model to capture various forms of nonlinearity, some that are approximations and others that are exact. Along the way they also discuss ...
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Season 5
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Episode 10
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49:50
S5E09 Regularized Variable Selection Methods
In today’s episode Greg and Patrick talk about regularization, which includes ridge, LASSO, and elastic net procedures for variable selection within the general linear model and beyond. Along the way they also mention Bowdlerizing, The Family S...
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Season 5
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Episode 9
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51:52
S5E08 Confirmatory Composite Analysis: Enter the Hexagon
In today’s episode, Greg and Patrick dig into Confirmatory Composite Analysis, a very clever way to get formative factors and their causal indicators into the traditional structural equation modeling framework, along with any other latent facto...
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Season 5
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Episode 8
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48:58
S5E07 Perspectives on Formative Factors & Causal Indicators
In today’s episode, Patrick and Greg talk about the challenge of having causal indicators of formative factors within an analytical framework that is historically dominated by effect indicators and latent factors — and the critical importance o...
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Season 5
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Episode 7
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47:36
S5E06 Advanced Factor Structures
In today’s episode, Patrick and Greg talk about fun extensions to the basic confirmatory factor model, including higher order models, bifactor or residualized models, and multitrait-multimethod models. Along the way they also mention microscope...
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Season 5
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Episode 6
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46:32
S5E05 Multilevel Models Unleashed
In this week’s episode Greg and Patrick take advantage of the recent expiration of a statute of limitations that legally allows them to talk about the multilevel model: what it is, when we might use it, and extremely cool extensions that it all...
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Season 5
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Episode 5
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55:33
S5E04 Dissertations: Quant Ideas From Actual Experts
In this week's episode Patrick and Greg enlist the help of six quantitative methodological scholars, who share a wide variety of fertile ground for quantitative research, which should be useful for students seeking dissertation topics as well a...
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Season 5
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Episode 4
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50:18