I know a little about statistics but not much. I'm interested in learning some new methods to what seems a common problem in engineering/science.
My Background: I have an engineering/science backgroun, and am pretty good with math. I have used the major mathematics software (Matlab, Mathematica, etc.), while dabbled in Python/C. I am not a statistician, but I think I can pick up the fundamentals if I apply myself. I have only taken one statistics course in college. The extent of my statistics use right now is averages/standard deviation of data, with occasional linear regression.
A sample problem: To answer the question on who is likely to recycle if recycling services were available and why. Perhaps there are a handful variables of interest (gender, age, geographic location, socioeconomic status, education, etc.). Let's assume I have data on a large population (probably a problem within itself). What sort of method could be used to answer this? Would this be a regression problem? Is this model development? How can I make predictions on whether someone would recycle based on the variables of interest?
Extra thanks if you can point me to resources (book, website, etc.) that can help, or software I could use.
Any suggestions?