SOC 470: Intermediate Social Statistics
Sole instructor: syllabus, lectures, assessment, and grading. The course covers estimation and inference through multiple regression, with an emphasis on interpreting models rather than running procedures.
Teaching
Teaching statistics as reasoning
Many students in an intermediate statistics course do not see themselves as quantitative people.
In my experience the main obstacle is rarely the mathematics. Courses often teach the software step by step but leave the reasoning behind a method unstated, so students learn which button produces a p-value before they learn what question it answers. I teach the reasoning first and introduce the software after.
01
Reasoning before software
Students learn what question a method answers before they learn which command runs it.
02
Interpreting, not just running, models
In SOC 470, regression is taught as a way to interpret evidence, with less weight on executing procedures.
03
Methods others can use
The same goal shapes my research software: documented, open-source tools for the methods in my papers.
Courses
Teaching experience
Teaching assistant and tutor
SOC 575: Statistical Models for Nonexperimental Research
Spring 2023
Pennsylvania State University·Graduate
CRIM 490: Crime Policy
Fall 2023, Spring 2024
Pennsylvania State University·Undergraduate
Tutor, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
2017–2019
Policing and Society·Sociology of Crime and
Deviance·Social Research Methods·Social
Problems and Social Policy
Materials
Teaching materials
These are available on request. Use the contact form or email siyangni@psu.edu.
- Teaching statement Available on request
- SOC 470 syllabus Available on request
- Course evaluations Available on request