Final Project
Overview
The final project is your chance to apply everything you’ve learned in this course to a dataset that interests you. You’ll choose a dataset, develop research questions, explore the data with visualizations, and communicate your findings in a polished Quarto report.
Weight: 35% of your final grade.
What you’ll produce
By the end of the quarter, you’ll have:
- A dataset relevant to psychology or the social sciences
- 2-3 research questions that can be explored through visualization
- A polished Quarto report (
.qmdrendered to HTML) with 4-6 publication-ready figures - A 5-minute recorded video presenting your key findings (shared with the class)
Milestones
The project is broken into four milestones so you get feedback along the way:
| Milestone | Due Date | What you submit |
|---|---|---|
| Proposal | Wed Apr 29 (Session 10) | Dataset, research questions, initial plan |
| Draft | Wed May 20 (Session 15) | Working code, preliminary visualizations |
| Final Report | Wed Jun 3 (Session 18) | Complete Quarto report |
| Presentation | Wed Jun 10 | 5-minute recorded video |
Grading breakdown
| Component | Points |
|---|---|
| Proposal | 10 |
| Draft | 15 |
| Final Report | 60 |
| Presentation | 15 |
| Total | 100 |
Choosing a dataset
Your dataset should:
- Be relevant to psychology or the social sciences (broadly defined)
- Have at least 20 observations and 5 variables (ideally a mix of numeric and categorical)
- Be something you find genuinely interesting — you’ll spend several weeks with it
Good sources for datasets
- Open Science Framework (OSF): osf.io — published research datasets
- ICPSR: icpsr.umich.edu — social science data archive
- General Social Survey (GSS): gss.norc.org
- World Values Survey: worldvaluessurvey.org
- Kaggle: kaggle.com/datasets — search for psychology-related datasets
- Your own research data — with your advisor’s permission
Come to office hours and we can browse datasets together. It’s much easier to stay motivated when you’re working with data you care about.
AI tools policy
AI tools (ChatGPT, Claude, GitHub Copilot, etc.) are not permitted on the final project. All code, visualizations, and writing must be your own work. See the syllabus for the full policy and rationale.
Getting help
- Office hours are the best place to get feedback on your project
- Class work time in Sessions 17 and 18 is dedicated to project questions
- You’re welcome to discuss ideas with classmates, but each person submits their own project