For a more technical treatment of some of the topics later in the module, I recommend “Latent Variable Models and Factor Analysis: A Unified Approach” Bartholomew, Knott, and Moustaki (2011), which is available online via the UCL library
Latent Dirichlet Analysis is a method for class mixture modelling, particularly useful for analysing word count data.
Correspondent analysis is, roughly speaking, principle components analysis for count data.
Multidimensional scaling methods simplify a large number of distance measures into coordinates in a small number of dimensions, almost always 2. They provide a way to take multiple senses of distance and simplify them into something that looks like a map.
Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling are tools for modelling relationships between observed and latent variables, and are a book-length topic in their own right. In principle, structural equation modelling allow one to integrate the task of measurement with descriptive/causal modelling, although in practice most applied structural equation modelling is quite naive with respect to the difficulty of making compelling causal claims.
Bartholomew, David J, M Knott, and Irini Moustaki. 2011. Latent Variable Models and Factor Analysis : A Unified Approach. 3rd ed. / David Bartholomew, Martin Knott, Irini Moustaki. Wiley Series in Probability and Statistics. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley.
Bartholomew, David J, Fiona Steele, Jane Galbraith, and Irini Moustaki. 2008. Analysis of Multivariate Social Science Data. Chapman; Hall/CRC.
Blalock, Hubert M. 1982. Conceptualization and Measurement in the Social Sciences. 04; H61, B5.
Everitt, Brian, and Torsten Hothorn. 2011. An Introduction to Applied Multivariate Analysis with r. Springer Science & Business Media.
Hanretty, Chris. 2017. “Areal Interpolation and the UK’s Referendum on EU Membership.” Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties 27 (4): 466–83.
James, Gareth, Daniela Witten, Trevor Hastie, and Robert Tibshirani. 2013. An Introduction to Statistical Learning. Vol. 112. Springer.
Pemstein, Daniel, Stephen A Meserve, and James Melton. 2010. “Democratic Compromise: A Latent Variable Analysis of Ten Measures of Regime Type.” Political Analysis 18 (4): 426–49.
World Bank. 2018. “The Human Capital Project.” International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / World Bank.
Zucco Jr, Cesar, Mariana Batista, and Timothy J Power. 2019. “Measuring Portfolio Salience Using the Bradley–Terry Model: An Illustration with Data from Brazil.” Research & Politics 6 (1): 2053168019832089.