Swiss Summer School 1998

Tony Coxon
Multidimensional Scaling

Tony Coxon

Universities of Leeds (UK); Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA); University Edinburgh; University of Wales, Cardiff; University of Essex (current).

Professor of Sociology (U of Essex), Emeritus Professor of Sociological Research Methods (University of Wales)

Particular interests include: (Methodology) Multidimensional Scaling, Classification & Clustering (esp. sorting methods); social networks. (Substantive) Social stratification, sociology of sex, Gay men and Aids.

Workshop contents and objectives

  1. to provide a basic overview of MDS and its applications
  2. Introduction; Data and Measures of di/similarity; Basic non-metric MDS model; Interpretation; Extensions of Basic Model; Three-way scaling; Recent developments

Bibliography

Basic text/overview
Kruskal and Wish (1978) Multidimensional Scaling (Sage QASS, no 11)

Remedial Reading
Kemeny, Snell and Thompson (1966 and on) Introduction to Finite Mathematics Main references (used during the workshop)
Coxon, The Users Guide to MDS (Heinemann 1982; reprinted Essex 1996)

Davies and Coxon; Key Texts in MDS (Heinemann) (readings)

Prerequisites

  1. Basic descriptive and inferential statistics (up to correlation, regression; preferably also factor analysis/ principal components)
  2. At least one of: elements of set theory, finite mathematics, simple geometry, matrix algebra

 

[Workshops]