12/21/2022
By Shanna Thompson

The Center for Program Evaluation will be holding Interdisciplinary Evaluation & Data Analyses Workshops on Jan. 12-13, 2023.

All workshops will be conducted via Zoom and recorded. All recordings will be available for 120 days after the session.
To register or to receive more information, please email us at cpe@uml.edu.

Our workshops are open to both people affiliated and not affiliated with UMass Lowell. You can register for as many of the workshops as you like. All registration fees are non-refundable.

Registration fee for UMass Lowell Faculty/Staff/Students: $10/workshop.
Registration fee for Non-Profit Community Organization Employees: $35/workshop.
Registration fee for For-Profit Business Organizations Employees: $100/workshop.
Register for all 5 workshops and receive a discounted rate.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 12, 2023

Introduction to ARIMA Interrupted Time Series Analysis Models: An Application in R
9 a.m. – Noon
Jason Rydberg, Associate Professor
School of Criminology and Justice Studies & Center for Program Evaluation

Interrupted time series data are common in program evaluation and policy analysis applications, where there are many temporal measurements of an outcome prior to and following an intervention. These data pose challenging problems for statistical inference attempting to determine the nature of program impact. The autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model is a classic tool for these applications. This workshop will cover the underlying logic of the ARIMA model, its implementation to a real data problem using R, and use the of transfer functions for more nuanced intervention impacts. Replication materials in R will be provided. Familiarity with general linear model [t-tests, ANOVA, regression] would be helpful.

Level: Intermediate

Exploratory Factor Analysis in SPSS
12:30 – 3 p.m.
Hsien-Yuan Hsu, Assistant Professor
School of Education & Center for Program Evaluation

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) has been widely used in social science research to investigate the factors underlying the responses to a set of items. In this workshop, the fundamental
knowledge of EFA will be introduced. In addition, through an example, participants will learn the steps of conducting an EFA in SPSS and the interpretation of EFA. Lastly, the STATA syntax and outputs of EFA will be provided for STATA users.

Level: Intermediate

FRIDAY, JANUARY 13, 2023

Introduction to JASP
9 – 11 a.m.
Khalid Alnafai, Graduate Student
Community Social Psychology & Center for Program Evaluation

This workshop will provide a hands-on introduction to using JASP, a free and open-source statistical analysis software with a point-click interface similar to SPSS. This workshop will include an overview of using JASP for applied data analysis – descriptive statistics and inferential statistics for hypothesis testing, such as t-tests, correlation, ANOVA, and multilevel models.

Level: Beginner

Testing the Representativeness of a Sample
11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Siffat Sharmin, Graduate Research Assistant
School of Education & Center for Program Evaluation

This workshop will review how to check data to make sure you have appropriate distributions in a sample. Various ways to test whether a sample generalizes to the population will be presented.

Level: Beginner

Introduction to NVivo
1 – 3 p.m.
Shanna Rose Thompson, CPE Manager & Adjunct Professor
School of Education & Center for Program Evaluation

NVivo is a helpful qualitative data analysis software available to UMass Lowell students, staff, & faculty. This beginning workshop will walk participants through how to get started on a project using key features of the software.

Level: Beginner

The mission of the Center for Program Evaluation (CPE) is to conduct research on program evaluation methods as well as to offer evaluation planning, consulting, training and services for the university, regional, and global community. CPE offers program evaluation services that support the University’s missions of research, teaching, and service to the community and industry.