Due: Oct 12 by 11:59pm
Weight: This assignment is worth 3% of your final grade.
Purpose: The purpose of this assignment is to get familiar with utility models, which will be the underyling modeling framework we will use for constructing choice models.
Assessment: This assignment is graded using a check system:
- ✔+ (110%): Responses shows phenomenal thought and engagement with the course content. I will not assign these often.
- ✔ (100%): Responses are thoughtful, well-written, and show engagement with the course content. This is the expected level of performance.
- ✔− (50%): Responses are hastily composed, too short, and/or only cursorily engages with the course content. This grade signals that you need to improve next time. I will hopefully not assign these often.
Notice that this is essentially a pass/fail system. I’m not grading your writing ability and I’m not counting the number of words you write - I’m looking for thoughtful engagement.
Download and edit this template when working through this assignment. Notice that this week’s template is a .Rmd file.
Next week we will start getting into choice modeling. I have pre-recorded videos covering most of the technical concepts we will use for estimating choice models in this Youtube playlist. Feel free to look ahead at concepts we’ll be covering over the next few weeks.
For this coming week, you should watch the first video:
Introduction to Choice Modeling
Take notes as you watch the video. Throughout the video, I ask practice questions at several places - you should answer to those questions as part of your reflection. You may submit your answers however you wish, e.g. hand-write them on paper and take a picture and / or type answers in your reflection .Rmd file.
Click here to download the slides in the video as a PDF.
If you are interested in more details about the logit model, see Chapter 3 (free pdf) of Kenneth Train’s book, “Discrete Choice Methods with Simulation”
Reflect on what you’ve learned and any questions or points of confusion you have about the basics of utility models. Is there anything that jumped out at you? Anything you found particularly interesting or confusing? After reflecting, do the following: