Raising the bar

Running simple regression in Stata is, well, simple. It's just a matter of a couple of clicks. Try to make it a small research.

1. Obtain descriptive statistics for your data (Statistics > Summaries, tables, and tests > Summary and descriptive statistics > Summary statistics). Look at all that stuff you studied in introductory statistics: units of measurement, means, minimums, maximums, and correlations. Knowing the units of measurement will be important for interpreting regression results; correlations will predict signs of coefficients, etc. In your report, don't just mechanically repeat all those measures; try to find and discuss something interesting.
2. Visualize your data (Graphics > Twoway graph). On the graph you can observe outliers and discern possible nonlinearity.
3. After running regression, report the estimated equation. It is called a fitted line and in our case looks like this: Earnings = -13.93+2.45*S (use descriptive names and not abstract X,Y). To see if the coefficient of S is significant, look at its p-value, which is smaller than 0.001. This tells us that at all levels of significance larger than or equal to 0.001 the null that the coefficient of S is significant is rejected. This follows from the definition of p-value. Nobody cares about significance of the intercept. Report also the p-value of the F statistic. It characterizes significance of all nontrivial regressors and is important in case of multiple regression. The last statistic to report is R squared.
4. Think about possible variations of the model. Could the dependence of Earnings on S be nonlinear? What other determinants of Earnings would you suggest from among the variables in Dougherty's file?

Figure 1. Looking at data. For data, we use a scatterplot.

Figure 2. Running regression (Statistics > Linear models and related > Linear regression)