Real-world data sets are messy and complicated. Written for students in social science and public management, this authoritative but approachable guide describes all the tools needed to collect data and prepare it for analysis. Offering detailed, step-by-step instructions, it covers collection of many different types of data including web files, APIs, and maps; data cleaning; data formatting; the integration of different sources into a comprehensive data set; and storage using third-party tools to facilitate access and shareability, from Google Docs to GitHub. Assuming no prior knowledge of R and Python, the author introduces programming concepts gradually, using real data sets that provide the reader with practical, functional experience.

An Introduction to Data Science is an easy-to-read data science textbook for those with no prior coding knowledge. It features exercises at the end of each chapter, author-generated tables and visualizations, and R code examples throughout.

"Data analysis has become a necessary skill across the social sciences, and recent advancements in computing power have made knowledge of programming an essential component. Yet most data science books are intimidating and overwhelming to a non-specialist audience, including most undergraduates. This book will be a shorter, more focused and accessible version of Kosuke Imai's Quantitative Social Science book, which was published by Princeton in 2018 and has been adopted widely in graduate level courses of the same title. This book uses the same innovative approach as Quantitative Social Science , using real data and 'R' to answer a wide range of social science questions. It assumes no prior knowledge of statistics or coding. It starts with straightforward, simple data analysis and culminates with multivariate linear regression models, focusing more on the intuition of how the math works rather than the math itself. The book makes extensive use of data visualizations, diagrams, pictures, cartoons, etc., to help students understand and recall complex concepts, provides an easy to follow, step-by-step template of how to conduct data analysis from beginning to end, and will be accompanied by supplemental materials in the appendix and online for both students and instructors"--

"Princeton University Press published Imai's textbook, Quantitative Social Science: An Introduction, an introduction to quantitative methods and data science for upper level undergrads and graduates in professional programs, in February 2017. What is distinct about the book is how it leads students through a series of applied examples of statistical methods, drawing on real examples from social science research. The original book was prepared with the statistical software R, which is freely available online and has gained in popularity in recent years. But many existing courses in statistics and data sciences, particularly in some subject areas like sociology and law, use STATA, another general purpose package that has been the market leader since the 1980s. We've had several requests for STATA versions of the text as many programs use it by default. This is a "translation" of the original text, keeping all the current pedagogical text but inserting the necessary code and outputs from STATA in their place"--

An introductory textbook offering a low barrier entry to data science; the hands-on approach will appeal to students from a range of disciplines.

Big Data and Social Science: Data Science Methods and Tools for Research and Practice, Second Edition shows how to apply data science to real-world problems, covering all stages of a data-intensive social science or policy project. Prominent leaders in the social sciences, statistics, and computer science as well as the field of data science provide a unique perspective on how to apply modern social science research principles and current analytical and computational tools. The text teaches you how to identify and collect appropriate data, apply data science methods and tools to the data, and recognize and respond to data errors, biases, and limitations. Features: Takes an accessible, hands-on approach to handling new types of data in the social sciences Presents the key data science tools in a non-intimidating way to both social and data scientists while keeping the focus on research questions and purposes Illustrates social science and data science principles through real-world problems Links computer science concepts to practical social science research Promotes good scientific practice Provides freely available workbooks with data, code, and practical programming exercises, through Binder and GitHub New to the Second Edition: Increased use of examples from different areas of social sciences New chapter on dealing with Bias and Fairness in Machine Learning models Expanded chapters focusing on Machine Learning and Text Analysis Revamped hands-on Jupyter notebooks to reinforce concepts covered in each chapter This classroom-tested book fills a major gap in graduate- and professional-level data science and social science education. It can be used to train a new generation of social data scientists to tackle real-world problems and improve the skills and competencies of applied social scientists and public policy practitioners. It empowers you to use the massive and rapidly growing amounts of available data to interpret economic and social activities in a scientific and rigorous manner.

This textbook presents the essential tools and core concepts of data science to public officials, policy analysts, and economists among others in order to further their application in the public sector. An expansion of the quantitative economics frameworks presented in policy and business schools, this book emphasizes the process of asking relevant questions to inform public policy. Its techniques and approaches emphasize data-driven practices, beginning with the basic programming paradigms that occupy the majority of an analyst’s time and advancing to the practical applications of statistical learning and machine learning. The text considers two divergent, competing perspectives to support its applications, incorporating techniques from both causal inference and prediction. Additionally, the book includes open-sourced data as well as live code, written in R and presented in notebook form, which readers can use and modify to practice working with data.