Categorical Data Analysis is even more fun than it sounds

I was very happy to get an acceptance letter from WUSS telling me that my class proposal for the 2011 conference was accepted. I’m usually happy to get acceptance letters in general but this was particularly nice since I have gotten the first four chapters of my naked mole rat book done and the next one is on logistic regression so the timing is perfect. The course description is below since I know you were just dying to read it.

Analysis of Categorical Data: For When Your Data Really Do Fit in Neat Little Boxes

What do birth, death, high school dropout, failing a course, losing a sale, engineering majors and being fired all have in common? If you answered, “Things my mother warned me about”,

you need therapy. The correct answer is all of these are categorical variables, where data pretty much DO fit in neat little boxes. You were either admitted to college or you weren’t. The customer either bought insurance from you or opened the door and let his pit bull chase you down the street. The voter checked the box for the Democratic, Republican or Independent candidate. You get the idea. This course begins with a one-hour discussion of simple statistics that are part of the UNIVARIATE and FREQ procedures.
The next two hours focus on a straightforward approach to PROC LOGISTIC. By the end of this course, you will be able to produce SAS analyses of categorical data and provide clear interpretations of the size of relationships, identify which variables matter in predicting outcomes, choose from competing models and whip out impressive graphic displays of your data and relationships. If you think McNemar and Akaike were on the same team in the last World Cup, this course is for you!