Videos

Introduction to Stata windows: restoring closed windows, personalizing window sizes, font sizes, and saving preferences.

There are 4 main windows in STATA

1. Variables - Lists variables and labels. Double click on a variable in this window to paste it into the command window
2. Command - Type in commands here
3. Results - Displays results generated from commands
4. Review - Keeps a history of all past commands executed. Click on a past command to paste it into the command window.

Exploring data layout, variable types, and use of variable and value labels

• Variable labels give a fuller description of variables
• Text variables stored in string format, numerical variables stores as int, float, byte, etc.
• Store a variable with numerical value and attach text labels to each value by creating a value label and applying it to the variable

Dummy Variables for each category take values "0" or "1"

One-way and two-way tables, incorporating missing data, and including relative frequencies

• Tabulations best used for categorical variables

Two-group mean comparison test

• Plotting graphs gives an idea of distributions of data
• ttest gives results for one-tail and two-tail tests

Using Graphs to understand your data through histogram, scatterplot, and bar graph

• Use graphs to compare statistics across categories

Using the Graph Editor to customize labels, colour schemes, design, etc.

• Saving graphs and pasting to Word documents
• Generate separate graphs by category

Record and save customizations to generate a standard format for all your graphs

Review of Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) simple linear regression and the constant coefficient

• STATA generates the constant term by regressing on x=1

Regressing with dummy variables and choosing a reference group

• Generate dummies to capture different effects of each category
• Choose one reference group (or constant) to omit to avoid multicollinearity
• Coefficients measure effects relative to reference group