Introduction to Rural America

The following materials illustrate an exercise of simplified recreation of study data. The text used as the basis for this exercise is Children of the Land: Adversity and Success in Rural America, by Glen H. Elder, Jr. and Rand D. Conger (University of Chicago Press, 2000). In this exercise, students respond to some of the survey questions used in Elder and Congers study. A data set is then compiled by the instructor. Students then take on the role as researchers and use their own class data for hypothesis formulation and testing. Student devise original hypotheses using their choice of variables from the data set. The instructor then runs the appropriate test for their hypothesis, and provides students with results (most often crosstabulation tables or reports of means) for final analysis.