Hi everyone, and welcome to the second module of EPI-2.
What you'll see in this module
is going to be typical of the next few modules.
We'll review some content
that you've already learned previously,
and then we'll build on this content
with more advanced material.
In this module, you're going to see EPI study designs
and then build on what you've learned before
with some more advanced EPI study designs,
and we'll look at how we can alter our study designs
to decrease potential confounding.
My message for you this week is don't wait to get started.
You have a chapter to read in your textbook,
and you'll see that your textbook chapters are pretty long.
I also want to make a note about your textbook
before we go forward.
I'll be honest with you guys,
it's pretty dry compared to the Gordis Epidemiology textbook
that we've used for EPI-1.
It is however, the best and only intermediate EPI-2 textbook
that's on the market,
so I do really apologize for the dryness,
but please do try to get as much out of it as you can.
Because our textbook is so dry,
I have purposefully included a lot of text
in the lectures for this module.
Work through the lecture content
before attempting to work through the textbook chapters.
The other thing that you have this week
is your first SPSS lab assignment.
And this also isn't short, so please do get started early.
You'll see that there's some additional information
about SPSS, some videos to watch,
and some additional support should you need it
for the SPSS assignment.
The resources on the SPSS page are designed for everyone,
regardless of your background with SPSS.
Take some time to look through the resources,
watch the videos, and follow along in your own SPSS software
to make sure you feel comfortable with what is presented.
Learning or advancing your knowledge
of a statistical software is really hard.
Here are two things that I found helpful.
The first is don't be afraid to play around
with the software, don't be afraid to click on things,
try things out and see if you can start to figure it out,
what SPSS is doing behind the scenes.
The second thing that I found useful is working with others,
so I encourage you to work with each other on these labs
using Yellowdig as a forum
so that you can get the most out of SPSS.
Feel free to post screenshots of your outputs.
Ask if others are getting similar results
or verify that your understanding of something makes sense.
You can really learn a lot from each other
and this discussion and collaboration
is going to be really good for your long-term retention
of the material and learning.
This mimics the real world of asking colleagues
or the internet for help when you run into
an analytic challenge.
If you have any questions,
please don't hesitate to get in touch
and I'll see you in the next module, take care.