{"id":140,"date":"2014-11-14T22:03:54","date_gmt":"2014-11-14T22:03:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/justinwiegand.com\/blog\/?p=140"},"modified":"2026-03-10T22:33:42","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T05:33:42","slug":"stop-missing-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/justinwiegand.com\/blog\/?p=140","title":{"rendered":"Stop missing data!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Missing data is not ideal, but is\u00a0a reality with most research. \u00a0This is especially true of social science research where data often comes from subjects who are not\u00a0forced to complete a survey or question they do not want to.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers\u00a0get scared by the idea of &#8220;imputing&#8221; data for missing values, but they need not be. \u00a0When handled correctly, missing data techniques simply correct for bias and decrease the likelihood of committing a Type II error. \u00a0No need to worry. \u00a0They are better than the alternative&#8211;pairwise or listwise deletion.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers fright with implementing &#8220;state-of-the-art&#8221; missing data techniques suggests\u00a0missing data techniques are (apparently) not well understood. \u00a0If only a handy guide existed&#8211;something you could cite to help determine and substantiate what types of missing data analysis you should (and did) engage in. \u00a0And code&#8230; if only someone gave you the syntax\u00a0to make these missing data problems (relatively) easy to solve.<\/p>\n<p>Good news! \u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/orm.sagepub.com\/content\/17\/4\/372\">The guide (and code) is now here!<\/a> \u00a0As author Dan Newman mentions in Guideline #0 (yes, there is a Guideline 0), \u00a0<span style=\"text-decoration: underline; color: #ff6600;\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">&#8220;Abstinence is not an option&#8221;<\/span><\/span><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">\u00a0<\/span>(p.383)&#8211;deleting responses with missing data <em>is<\/em> a missing data technique (and a sub-par one to be sure). \u00a0With a Guideline 0 and titles like these, you might just\u00a0<em>want<\/em> some missing data to deal with by the end of your read.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Missing data is not ideal, but is\u00a0a reality with most research. \u00a0This is especially true of social science research where data often comes from subjects who are not\u00a0forced to complete a survey or question they do not want to. Researchers\u00a0get scared by the idea of &#8220;imputing&#8221; data for missing values,&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Stop missing data!","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[50,85,49],"class_list":["post-140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-methods","tag-dan-newman","tag-methods","tag-missing-data"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p51adQ-2g","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/justinwiegand.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/justinwiegand.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/justinwiegand.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justinwiegand.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justinwiegand.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=140"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/justinwiegand.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":897,"href":"https:\/\/justinwiegand.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140\/revisions\/897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/justinwiegand.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justinwiegand.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justinwiegand.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}