What The...
What's Up? I'm a Research Assistant Professor in the Michigan Program in Survey Methodology, located within the Survey Research Center at the Institute for Social Research on the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor campus. I also provide statistical consultation and help to develop research grant proposals at the Center for Statistical Consultation and Research. I have a PhD in Survey Methodology from MPSM, and both a Masters Degree in Applied Statistics and a Bachelors Degree in Statistics from the U of M Department of Statistics. Interested parties can check out my CV here. You can also drop me an email!

Current Courses
Click here to download the data sets and syntax for the CSCAR workshop Intermediate Topics in SPSS: Advanced Statistical Models.

Linear Mixed Models: A Practical Guide using Statistical Software
I have written a book entitled Linear Mixed Models: A Practical Guide Using Statistical Software with two colleagues here at U of M (Kathy Welch and Andrzej Galecki). Click on the title to access electronic versions of the data files and syntax discussed in the book. The book was published by Chapman Hall/CRC Press in Boca Raton, Florida (click on the link for ordering details). Update: We will be working on a Second Edition of this book starting in January 2012!

Applied Survey Data Analysis (ASDA)
A new textbook which is joint work with my colleagues Steve Heeringa and Pat Berglund at ISR, Applied Survey Data Analysis aims to provide researchers with guidance on correct application of modern techniques for design-based analysis of complex sample survey data, and is now available from various online retailers.

Academic Publications
Selected publications are listed below.
1. Groves, R.M., Presser, S., Tourangeau, R., West, B.T., Couper, M.P., Singer, E., and Toppe, C. (In Press). Support for the Survey Sponsor and Nonresponse Bias. Public Opinion Quarterly.
2. West, B.T. (In Press). An Examination of the Quality and Utility of Interviewer Observations in the National Survey of Family Growth. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series A, forthcoming.
3. West, B.T. and Galecki, A.T. (2011). An Overview of Current Software Procedures for Fitting Linear Mixed Models. The American Statistician, 65(4), 274-282.
4. West, B.T. (2011). Paradata in Survey Research: Examples, Utility, Quality, and Future Directions. Survey Practice, August: www.surveypractice.org.
5. West, B.T. and Groves, R.M. (2011). The PAIP Score: A Propensity-Adjusted Interviewer Performance Indicator. In JSM Proceedings, AAPOR 2011. Alexandria, VA: American Statistical Association, pp. 5631-5645.
6. West, B.T. and Kreuter, F. (2011). Observational Strategies Associated with Increased Accuracy of Interviewer Observations: Evidence from the National Survey of Family Growth. In JSM Proceedings, Survey Research Methods Section. Alexandria, VA: American Statistical Association, pp. 5646-5658.
7. West, B.T. (2011). Bayesian Analysis of Between-Group Differences in Variance Components in Hierarchical Generalized Linear Models. In JSM Proceedings, Survey Research Methods Section. Alexandria, VA: American Statistical Association, pp. 1828-1842.
8. West, B.T. and Olson, K. (2010). How much of interviewer variance is really nonresponse error variance? Public Opinion Quarterly, 74(5), 1004-1026.
9. West, B.T. (2010). A Practical Technique for Improving the Accuracy of Interviewer Observations: Evidence from the National Survey of Family Growth. NSFG Working Paper No. 10-013. November 2010.
10. Heeringa, S.G., West, B.T., and Berglund, P.A. (2010). Applied Survey Data Analysis. Chapman Hall / CRC Press: Boca Raton, FL.
11. McCabe, S.E., Hughes, T.L., Bostwick, W.B., West, B.T., and Boyd, C.J. (2010). Discrimination and Substance Use Disorders among Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Adults in the United States. American Journal of Public Health, 100, 1946-1952.
12. West, B.T. (2009). Analyzing Longitudinal Data with the Linear Mixed Models Procedure in SPSS. Evaluation and the Health Professions, 32(3), 207-228.
13. McCabe, S.E., Hughes, T.L., Bostwick, W.B., West, B.T., and Boyd, C.J. (2009). Sexual Orientation, Substance Use Behaviors, and Substance Use Disorders in the United States. Addiction, 104, 1333-1345.
14. Gonzalez, H.M, Ceballos, M., West, B.T., Bowen, M.E., Tarraf, W., and Reyes, E. (2009). The Health of Older Mexican Americans in the Long Run. American Journal of Public Health, 99(10), 1-7.
15. West, B.T. (2008). Statistical and Methodological Issues in the Analysis of Complex Sample Survey Data: Practical Guidance for Trauma Researchers. Journal of Traumatic Stress. Vol. 21, No. 5, October 2008, 440-447.
16. West, B.T. and Lamsal, M. A New Application of Linear Modeling in the Prediction of College Football Bowl Outcomes and the Development of Team Ratings. Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports. Vol. 4 (2008), Issue 3, Article 3.
17. West, B.T., Berglund, P., and Heeringa, S.G. (2008). A Closer Examination of Subpopulation Analysis of Complex Sample Survey Data. The Stata Journal, 8(4), 520-531.
18. West, B.T., Welch, K.B. and Galecki, A.T. (with Contributions from Brenda W. Gillespie) (2007). Linear Mixed Models: A Practical Guide using Statistical Software. Chapman Hall / CRC Press: Boca Raton, FL.
19. West, B.T. A Simple and Flexible Rating Method for Predicting Success in the NCAA Basketball Tournament. Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports: Vol. 2: No. 3, Article 3, 2006.
For a complete list of my publications, please click here.

Teaching
I teach courses, workshops, and seminars for CSCAR, ISR, various other departments around campus, and statistics.com. These include:
-Issues in Analysis of Complex Sample Survey Data (CSCAR)
-Introduction to Stata (CSCAR)
-Applications of HLM (CSCAR)
-Introduction to SPSS (CSCAR)
-Intermediate Topics in SPSS (CSCAR)
-Logistic Regression and Related Techniques (CSCAR)
-Statistical Analysis with R (CSCAR)
-SurvMeth 614: Analysis of Complex Sample Survey Data (ISR Summer Program)
-Mixed and Hierarchical Linear Models (statistics.com)
-Analysis of Survey Data from Complex Sample Designs (statistics.com)
-Statistical Analysis with Missing Data (CSCAR)
-Biostatistics for Grant Development (Radiation Oncology @ Medical School)
-Introduction to SAS for Financial Engineers
-Nursing 598: Statistical Analysis with SPSS (U of M Flint)

For more information on CSCAR workshops, please visit here.

March Madness...
I strongly believe that statistical modeling can be used to predict success in the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament. I'm interested in the development of statistical regression models that can be used to predict success, and in the paper above, I present a simple and flexible rating method for predicting success in the NCAA basketball tournament. The paper utilizes a method based on ordinal logistic regression and expectation for prediction. I believe that the RPI is a numerically flawed rating system that receives an unfair amount of weight in selecting and seeding teams for the tournament, and I have shown over the last five years that my models are comparable to or better than the RPI in terms of predicting success in the tournament.

If numerical ratings like the RPI are going to be considered in seeding teams selected for the tournament, the selection committee should focus on the ratings that do the best job of actually predicting success in the tournament, or pre-tournament ratings that correlate very well with actual success. The "best" ratings can be used to identify teams that are likely to do well in the tournament (and thus teams that are most eligible to compete for the national championship). I collect data on RPI ratings, Jeff Sagarin's computer ratings, and the predictors of success that I consider in my models, and then calculate predicted success in the tournament (which can be translated into a rating) based on my models. You can view the 2012 predictions and final results (along with results from previous years) here.

In the 2012 tournament, my predictions had a correlation with actual success (0.589) that was higher than both the pre-tournament RPI ratings (0.511) and the Sagarin ratings (0.565). Feedback is more than welcome!

Bowl Madness...
I'm also interested in the possibility that statistical modeling can be used to predict the outcomes of college football bowl games, and in this paper published in the Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, my colleague Madhur Lamsal and I consider a straightforward application of statistical modeling in determining whether team-level variables were able to predict the actual bowl game outcomes in the 2007-2008 bowl season. I also consider applications of the predictions in the development of ratings for college football teams, based on a round-robin playoff scenario.

Updated predictions for the 2011-2012 bowls based on the historical model and corresponding results (62.9% accuracy) can be found here.

2008-2009 Bowls: Predictions and Results (58.8% accuracy)
2009-2010 Bowls: Predictions, Results and Ratings (55.9% accuracy)
2010-2011 Bowls: Predictions and Results (62.9% accuracy)

Recent articles referencing the method have appeared in the New York Times, the Ann Arbor News, and the Kansas City Star.

Constructive comments and feedback are more than welcome. Please keep in mind that I do all of this for a hobby, for fun. I do not get paid by anyone to produce these ratings, and I do not have the time to look at every possible predictor of success! I'm always open to advice about data resources where additional (and more informative) team-level statistics can be found. All of these models are certainly in their infancy, and some of the predictions may definitely look odd (of course I don't truly believe that Missouri was the third-best football team in the nation in 2008...I was purely reporting predictions based on my very young and under-developed model). I simply ask that people read in to the general methods that I've proposed before making personal attacks of any kind. Thanks!

Check out my music page!

Community Service!
The University of Michigan Circle K
The Detroit Project
K-Grams =)

The Presbyterian Church
I'm a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Ann Arbor, where I was involved with the Worship Committee for the past five years. I have also been a Deacon for Chapel 27 here in Ann Arbor, and I was co-Moderator of the Board of Deacons in 2011. Click here to find out more about the Presbyterian Church of the USA.

More stuff...
Click here to see a picture of me and my wife Laura! =)
billiards.com
U of M Billiards
Bananas: IM Campus Champs!
A link to this page when it was a Birthday Present from my friends James DeVaney and Matt Comstock.
Goin' To Work!
Good drops.

This page is constantly under construction, so visit again soon!

Last modified 5/18/12 by Brady T. West