Schedule
Course Schedule
Below is the schedule for PSY 410/510: Data Science for Psychology.
- Readings can be completed before or after the class session — quizzes are due Sunday at 11:59 PM
- R4DS = R for Data Science (2nd ed.)
- 📋 = Assignment due (Sundays at 11:59 PM) | 📝 = Project milestone
- Schedule is subject to change based on course needs
Week 1: Getting Started
Session 1: Introduction & Setup
Monday, March 30
- Why data science for psychology? The replication crisis as motivation
- Installing R and RStudio
- RStudio interface, projects, and organizing your work
- File and variable naming conventions
📖 Read: R4DS Ch 2: Workflow: basics | R4DS Ch 6: Workflow: scripts and projects
Session 2: Your First Visualization
Wednesday, April 1
- Introduction to ggplot2
- Grammar of graphics: aesthetics, geoms, facets
- Making your first plots
📖 Read: R4DS Ch 1: Data visualization
Week 2: Data Transformation
Session 3: Data Transformation I
Monday, April 6
- Working with rows:
filter(),arrange() - Working with columns:
select(),mutate() - The pipe operator
📖 Read: R4DS Ch 3: Data transformation (sections 3.1–3.4)
Assignment 1: Getting Started — Due Sunday, April 5 at 11:59 PM
Session 4: Data Transformation II
Wednesday, April 8
- Working with groups:
group_by(),summarize() - Combining operations
- Code style best practices
📖 Read: R4DS Ch 3: Data transformation (section 3.5) | R4DS Ch 4: Workflow: code style
Week 3: Working with Data
Session 5: Data Tidying
Monday, April 13
- Tidy data principles
- Reshaping data:
pivot_longer(),pivot_wider() - Common tidying problems
📖 Read: R4DS Ch 5: Data tidying
Assignment 2: Data Transformation — Due Sunday, April 12 at 11:59 PM
Session 6: Data Import
Wednesday, April 15
- Reading and writing CSV files
- Working with Excel spreadsheets
- Common import issues and solutions
📖 Read: R4DS Ch 7: Data import | R4DS Ch 20: Spreadsheets
Week 4: Reproducibility & Visualization
Session 7: Quarto & Reproducibility
Monday, April 20
- Literate programming: code + narrative in one document
- Quarto documents: YAML, markdown, code chunks
- Inline code and output formats
- Rendering to HTML and PDF
📖 Read: R4DS Ch 28: Quarto
Session 8: Layers & Aesthetics
Wednesday, April 22
- Geoms, stats, and position adjustments
- Coordinate systems and scales
- Choosing the right plot for your data
📖 Read: R4DS Ch 9: Layers
Week 5: Visualization & EDA
Session 9: Perception & Design
Monday, April 27
- Visual perception principles
- Color theory and accessibility
- Psychology-specific visualizations: error bars, interaction plots, raincloud plots
📖 Read: TBD (supplementary materials on visual perception)
Assignment 3: Tidying, Import & Quarto — Due Sunday, April 26 at 11:59 PM
Session 10: EDA — Variation
Wednesday, April 29
- Exploring distributions
- Identifying outliers and unusual values
- Asking good questions of your data
📖 Read: R4DS Ch 10: Exploratory data analysis (sections 10.1–10.4)
Final Project Proposal Due — Dataset selection, research questions, initial plan
Week 6: Exploratory Data Analysis
Session 11: EDA — Covariation
Monday, May 4
- Exploring relationships between variables
- Patterns and models
- Hands-on: Explore a psychology dataset
📖 Read: R4DS Ch 10: Exploratory data analysis (sections 10.5–10.6)
Assignment 4: Visualization Deep Dive — Due Sunday, May 3 at 11:59 PM
Session 12: Data Types Grab Bag
Wednesday, May 6
- Logical vectors: comparisons and Boolean operations
- Working with numeric data: rounding, summarizing
- Recoding and computing scale scores
📖 Read: R4DS Ch 12: Logical vectors | R4DS Ch 13: Numbers
Week 7: Data Wrangling
Session 13: Strings, Factors & Text
Monday, May 11
- Basic string cleaning:
str_to_lower(),str_trim(),str_replace() - Working with categorical variables (factors)
- Light text analysis: tokenizing and counting open-ended survey responses
📖 Read: R4DS Ch 14: Strings (sections 14.1–14.3) | R4DS Ch 16: Factors
Assignment 5: Exploratory Data Analysis — Due Sunday, May 10 at 11:59 PM
Session 14: Joins
Wednesday, May 13
- Primary keys and foreign keys
- Mutating joins:
left_join(),inner_join(), etc. - Filtering joins:
semi_join(),anti_join()
📖 Read: R4DS Ch 19: Joins
Week 8: Missing Data
Monday, May 18
Use this time to work on your final project draft!
Session 15: Missing Data
Wednesday, May 20
- Implicit vs. explicit missing values
- Patterns of missingness
- Strategies for handling missing data in psychological research
📖 Read: R4DS Ch 18: Missing values
Assignment 6: Data Types & Wrangling — Due Sunday, May 17 at 11:59 PM
Final Project Draft Due — Working code, preliminary visualizations
Week 9: Storytelling with Data
Monday, May 25
Session 16: Storytelling with Data
Wednesday, May 27
Drawing from Knaflic’s “Storytelling with Data”
- Understand the context — Audience, message, and the Big Idea
- Choose appropriate visuals — Matching plot types to data and questions
- Eliminate clutter — Gestalt principles; strategic contrast
- Focus attention — Preattentive attributes (color, size, position)
- Think like a designer — Visual hierarchy; accessibility; colorblind-friendly palettes
Plus: Data integrity, the replication crisis, and why reproducible workflows matter
📖 Read: R4DS Ch 11: Communication
Assignment 7: Joins & Missing Data — Due Sunday, May 24 at 11:59 PM
Week 10: Modeling & Wrap-up
Session 17: Correlation & Simple Regression
Monday, June 1
- Quantifying relationships:
cor()andcor.test() - Introduction to
lm(): fitting and interpreting a simple linear model - Connecting EDA to inference: “is this pattern real?”
- A preview of what’s next in your stats courses
📖 Read: TBD (supplementary intro to correlation and regression in R)
Assignment 8: Storytelling Report — Due Sunday, May 31 at 11:59 PM
Session 18: Putting It All Together
Wednesday, June 3
- Complete analysis workflow demonstration
- Common errors and debugging strategies
- Course review: What you’ve learned
- Where to go from here: next steps for continued learning
- Final project Q&A
📖 Read: R4DS Ch 8: Workflow: getting help
Final Project Report Due — Complete Quarto report with visualizations
Finals Week
Wednesday, June 10
5-minute recorded video presentations — due Wednesday, June 10 at 11:59 PM on Canvas
Assignment Summary
| Assignment | Topic | Assigned | Due |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Getting Started | Wed Apr 1 | Sun Apr 5 |
| 2 | Data Transformation | Wed Apr 8 | Sun Apr 12 |
| 3 | Tidying, Import & Quarto | Mon Apr 20 | Sun Apr 26 |
| 4 | Visualization Deep Dive | Mon Apr 27 | Sun May 3 |
| 5 | Exploratory Data Analysis | Mon May 4 | Sun May 10 |
| 6 | Data Types & Wrangling | Mon May 11 | Sun May 17 |
| 7 | Joins & Missing Data | Wed May 13 | Sun May 24 |
| 8 | Storytelling Report | Wed May 27 | Sun May 31 |
Final Project Milestones
| Milestone | Due Date |
|---|---|
| Proposal | Session 10 (Apr 29) |
| Draft | Session 15 (May 20) |
| Final Report | Session 18 (Jun 3) |
| Presentation | Wed Jun 10 |