Читать книгу Spatial Regression Models for the Social Sciences - Jun Zhu - Страница 7
ОглавлениеPreface
The past few decades have seen rapid development in spatial regression methods, which have been introduced in a large number of books and journal articles. However, when teaching spatial regression models and methods to social scientists, the authors had difficulty recommending a suitable textbook for students in the social sciences to read. Many of the existing textbooks are either too technical for social scientists or are limited in scope, partly due to the rapid development in the methods. A textbook that provides relatively comprehensive coverage of spatial regression methods for social scientists and introduces the methods in an easy-to-follow approach is much needed.
Therefore, we have attempted to write this as a primer type of textbook for social scientists who would like a quick start to learning spatial regression methods. While the methods are many and counting, we have decided to focus on the methods that are commonly used by social scientists and tend to be useful to them. These methods include exploratory spatial data analysis, methods dealing with spatial dependence and/or spatial heterogeneity, and more advanced spatial regression models.
Why This Book?
There are a number of existing books on spatial regression methods in the field of spatial statistics. They provide comprehensive coverage of some, if not all, of the three main components of spatial statistics: spatial point pattern analysis, lattice (or areal) data analysis (i.e., spatial regression models and methods), and/or geostatistics; a few books also address spatial interactive data analysis. However, these textbooks tend to be written for natural scientists or regional scientists and require that readers have a good understanding of mathematical statistics. In addition, they are not necessarily tailored to areal (or lattice) data analysis in social science research, which is the most useful component, at least presently. This is not a criticism of these books; rather, we simply see a lack of a spatial regression textbook for social scientists interested in learning the models and methods in a comprehensive and easy-to-follow manner and with limited training in mathematical statistics. This is where our book comes in: like these other books, it discusses spatial regression models and methods, and unlike the other books, it is written specifically for social scientists.
The distinguishing features of this book include the following:
1 It is geared toward social scientists who are familiar with standard regression methods and would like to learn spatial regression models and methods.
2 It provides relatively comprehensive coverage of spatial regression models and methods for social scientists.
3 The spatial regression models that it covers are commonly used by social scientists and are of interest to them.
4 It introduces the spatial regression models and methods in a generally easy-to-follow manner.
5 All figures and illustrations have color versions available at study.sagepub.com/researchmethods/quantitative-statistical-research/chi
Who Is This Book for?
This book could be particularly useful for social scientists who are familiar with standard regression methods and desire to learn spatial regression models and methods. It can be used as an introductory book to get to know spatial regression methods and apply them readily. It can also be used for a one-semester quantitative social science course at both undergraduate and graduate levels.
In addition, this book could be useful for social scientists who are interested in using spatial regression methods in their research. This includes instructors, researchers, and students in a wide range of social science disciplines such as sociology, demography, criminology, anthropology, human geography, economics, education, communication, history, law, political science, psychology, urban studies and planning, and others. The book may serve these social scientists as both a textbook and a reference book.
Although it is chiefly intended to be a core textbook for social science courses that focus on areal (or lattice) data analysis using spatial regression models and methods, it could serve as a supplemental textbook for social science courses that provide a more general coverage of regression methods.
A website for the book at study.sagepub.com/researchmethods/quantitative-statistical-research/chi contains color versions of the figures from the book, together with the tables that form Appendix B: Results Using Forty Spatial Weight Matrices.