March 2015 Member Webinar: Count Models

Count variables are common dependent variables in many fields. For example:

• Number of diseased trees
• Number of salamander eggs that hatch
• Number of crimes committed in a neighborhood

Although they are numerical and look like they should work in linear models, they often don’t.

Not only are they discrete instead of continuous (you can’t have 7.2 eggs hatching!), they can’t go below 0. And since 0 is often the most common value, they’re often highly skewed — so skewed, in fact, that transformations don’t work.

There are, however, generalized linear models that work well for count data. They take into account the specific issues inherent in count data. They should be accessible to anyone who is familiar with linear or logistic regression.

In this webinar, we’ll discuss the different model options for count data, including how to figure out which one works best. We’ll go into detail about how the models are set up, some key statistics, and how to interpret parameter estimates.

Note: This webinar is an exclusive benefit for members of the Statistically Speaking Membership Program.

About the Instructor

Karen Grace-Martin helps statistics practitioners gain an intuitive understanding of how statistics is applied to real data in research studies.

She has guided and trained researchers through their statistical analysis for over 15 years as a statistical consultant at Cornell University and through The Analysis Factor. She has master’s degrees in both applied statistics and social psychology and is an expert in SPSS and SAS.

Not a Member Yet?

It’s never too late to join the hottest stats club around.

Just head over to our enrollment page to sign up for Statistically Speaking.

You’ll get exclusive access to this month’s webinar, plus live Q&A sessions, a private stats forum, 50+ video recordings of past webinars (including this one), and more.

Tagged as: counts, data, discrete, parameter estimates