Week 9: Data analysis: capacities, challenges, and purposes
What is your analysis for, and what can it claim?
Design stage: Data analysis. Match a computational method to an epistemic purpose, and work out what its output can and cannot support.
Prepare for class
Read: Chapter 7; computational analysis and epistemic purposes. The chapters are in Canvas, and the companion page has the materials that go with them.
Reading focus: Separate what a method can do (iterate, model non-linear relations, process high-dimensional data) from what a study asks it to do (describe, explain, predict, or integrate). Note the three challenges: epistemic opacity, the gap from semantics to application, and temporal dynamics.
Write a half-page Practice note on one study from the computational-analysis list. Discussion leaders prepare the opening. Submit Milestone 3 and Reflection 2 before Wednesday’s class.
Weekly time budget
Outside class: 360 minutes (6 clock hours) maximum planned work per student. These allocations include all required preparation and submissions; they are planning estimates, not time logs for grading.
| Work | Planned minutes |
|---|---|
| Reading and discussion preparation | 90 |
| Exercises and project work, including troubleshooting | 150 |
| Writing, documentation, and reflection | 120 |
| Total | 360 |
Assemble Milestone 3 from the Chapter 6 deliverables and write Reflection 2. Read Chapter 7 to decide which purpose your analysis will serve, and choose your route through Chapter 8.
How the weekly cap works. If required work will exceed the budget, save your attempt and contact the instructor to adjust scope or arrange support.
From the book
Chapter 7’s Practice section asks which purpose a study serves and whether its validation fits. Chapter 8 then has you run the same kinds of method on your own corpus. Milestone 4 requires one capacity exercise, one purpose exercise, and the validity reflection in Exercise 8.3.
On the companion website: Chapter 7 studies, filtered to computational analysis · Chapter 8 materials · Supervised learning, gently
Monday, March 8: Practice discussion: computational methods in empirical studies
12:45–2:00 PM · PV A203
After the student-led opening, identify the study’s epistemic purpose and the capacities its method relies on. Ask how it handles opacity, the semantics-to-application gap, and temporal dynamics, and whether its validation suits its purpose.
Check the reasoning: A useful prediction does not establish why an outcome occurs. Rewrite one claim in the study, or in your own plan, that asks a method for more than its purpose supports.
Wednesday, March 10: Analysis planning workshop
12:45–2:00 PM · PV A203
Choose your route through Chapter 8: a coauthor network (Exercise 8.1.1) or a predictive model (Exercise 8.1.3), and the purpose exercise that builds on it. Write the purpose statement for Milestone 4. Check that your corpus has the fields the route needs.
Check the reasoning: State the evidence you would need before you believed your own result. If you cannot name it, the purpose is not yet specific enough.
Work to carry forward
Log your route and the reason for it in memory/DECISIONS.md. Nothing is assigned over the break.
Due this week, at the start of Wednesday’s class:
- Milestone 3: Concept representation (20 points)
- Reflection 2: measurement (5 points)
Assignments and deliverables · Your project · The book and companion website