Psychological Research Methods with Data Science

at University of Sheffield

Bringing together practical training in the latest research techniques with computational data analysis classes, this course has been developed to enable psychology students to make the transition to becoming data scientists.

We’ll train you in the most commonly applied quantitative methods including multilevel modelling, factor analysis, and structural equation modelling, as well as the skills of when to apply such techniques and how to interpret the output. Our leading psychologists, your teachers, have extensive experience of handling large data sets to answer pressing problems in psychology and they’ll lead your computational data analysis training and aid your transition to data science. Throughout your course, we'll teach you the skills you need and give you the opportunities to apply them to the area of psychology that you're interested in: from cognitive and developmental, to social and clinical psychology.

Alongside your data science training you'll learn a broad range of research techniques from neuroimaging (EEG, fMRI), behavioural genetics, through experimental methodologies and clinical trial design, to qualitative interview, diary study methodologies and specialist methods for working with infants, children and clinical populations. You'll also begin training in a range of skills that are important for data scientists in academia and professional roles: you'll understand ethical issues and the implications of using data to predict and influence human behaviour, and develop your presentation skills ready to take part in our annual student-led summer conference.

The research project and literature review course components, which include coverage of meta-analysis, give you the opportunity to focus on a chosen psychological research question in detail under the supervision of one of our world-class researchers. You can choose a supervisor from an area of psychology that matches your research interests and future career aspirations within cognitive, developmental, social or clinical psychology. These projects give you the opportunity to put your new data science and research methods knowledge into practice while addressing an issue at the cutting edge of psychological research. It's common for MSc research projects and literature reviews to form the basis of publications in peer-reviewed journals.