Updated 27/08/2021

Statistics for Premasters DSS

(800878-B-6)
Department of Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence
Tilburg University

COURSE SYLLABUS

Instructor: Dr. Peter Hendrix Term: Fall 2021

Dr. Eriko Fukuda
Class Meeting Days: Video Lectures
Teaching Ethel Pruss
Assistant Online Live Practical
Sessions

Contact Contact through Canvas messaging Class Meeting Check your timetable**
Hours:

Office Hours: By appointment Class Location: NA

Course Aims:
• Demonstrate competence with the basics of the R statistical programming language including, but not
limited to, loading and working with data, finding and installing packages, and effectively applying
functions
• Comprehend and interpret effective visualizations of data using R
• Interpret descriptive statistics to understand data using R
• Describe and recognize the steps for null hypothesis significance testing as well as its limitations
• Conduct and interpret output from non-parametric analyses using R
• Conduct and interpret means comparison-based analyses including t-tests and analysis of variance using
R

Course Specifics:
This course is primarily assessed using a multiple-choice exam, which is worth 80% of the course grade.
Students need to pass the final exam to pass the course. In addition, students must complete 5-6 practical
exercises, which are worth a total of 20% of the final course grade. Practical exercises are only marked as
complete/incomplete and students are expected to self-evaluate their submissions based on provided
solutions.
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Course Content:
This course involves a combination of lecture, demonstration, and practical exercises designed to introduce
students to the basics of both the statistical programming language R as well basic statistical methods. The
topics in the course include the basics of the R statistical programming language and navigating the R
Studio environment, creating and interpreting different visualizations of data, understanding and utilizing
functions that provide descriptive statistics about data, as well when and how to applying different
inferential statistics including t-tests, analysis of variance, and non-parametric tests.

How to Get the Most from this Course:

First, as students, we highly encourage you to familiarize yourself with effective learning techniques and the
theory and empirical work behind them. A good overview can be found in Dunlosky et al. (2013) cited
below, but this is a very rich literature.

Next, keep in mind that this is a 6 EC course and one EC is equivalent to a study load of approximately 28
hours (including lectures, laboratory courses, practical work, assignments, projects, private work as well as
examinations or other assessment activities. So you should spend approximately 168 hours on this course
over the semester. To get the most out of this course, we recommend for each topic/module you:
1. Read the Required Text
2. Complete Swirl/LearnR
3. Complete Pre-Class Quizzes
4. Attend/Watch Lectures
5. Engage in in Class Exercises
6. Check your Understanding (Reread if necessary, post questions on Canvas)
7. Complete Required Practical Exercises
8. Evaluate Practical Exercise Solutions (Post questions on Canvas, ask Questions in Practical
Sessions)
9. (Optional) Complete Associated Open Stats Lab)

Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving students’
learning with effective learning techniques: Promising directions from cognitive and educational
psychology. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4-58.

Required Materials:
The required text for the course is D. Navarro, Learning Statistics with R and it is available to download for
free from the following link: https://learningstatisticswithr.com/
You must complete the required course readings before our class meets that week. Check the
course schedule weekly to be prepared for class.

Recommended Materials:
Field, A., Miles, J., & Field, Z. Discovering Statistics with R. 4th edition. Sage.
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Getting R, R studio, and Swirl:

We highly recommend that prior to our first meeting you get R, R studio, and Swirl working on your
personal computer. There are detailed instructions for completing this here:
https://swirlstats.com/students.html
After you have completed these steps install the course ‘R Programming E’ by typing the following
commands: install_course('R Programming E'). The course schedule lists recommended
exercises, most of which are completed by installing courses in Swirl and completing the specified lessons.
These are not mandatory, but they will greatly improve your understanding of the course content, as well
as develop your statistical programming and analysis skills.

Canvas:
Canvas is the primary method of communication for this course. You should:
• Regularly check Canvas for important information, announcements, and course content.
• Post questions in the discussion forum and reply to questions you know the answer to.

Practical Exercises:
There will be six practical exercises in the course. You are required to submit your results on Canvas.
These will be marked as complete or incomplete, but the solutions will be uploaded and you are asked to
self-evaluate your performance. Practical Exercises are worth 20% of the final grade.

• The solutions will be uploaded shortly after the deadline and you are required to self-evaluate your
performance.
• The goal is to complete the assignment to the best of your ability. If you are unable to figure
something out, try to team up with your fellow classmates, join in on practical sessions and ask
questions. Otherwise, you need to demonstrate in your submission a valid attempt to solve the
tasks/answer the questions (showing one error in R as evidence you tried is not a valid attempt).
• The deadlines will be fixed in Canvas on Sundays before midnight. No late submissions will be
accepted. No submissions via emails to instructors and teaching assistants will be
accepted. As a leniency measure, 1 practical exercise can be skipped to still obtain full points.

Exams:
The exam is assessed on the University’s 10 point grading scale.
• The exam will be multiple choice and is administered in person (if possible, otherwise online).
• Students need to pass the final exam to pass the course.
• Grades will first be made available on Canvas and then submitted to the administration to post on
OSIRIS. If you have failed the final exam, then your final grade will show us as a 5 until you
complete and pass the resit exam.
• Dates for the final and resit exam are scheduled by the Administration and will be made
available to you in your My Timetable.
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• All grades are rounded to the nearest .5 except for those that fall between 5-6, which are round to
the nearest whole value.
• After grades are posted, you are allowed to set up an appointment to inspect the results of your
exam (depending on exam format).

Final Grade Calculation:

Only Final Course Grades are submitted to Osiris. They will be submitted to the student administration for
processing shortly following the examination period and the resit examination period.
• The Dutch marking system runs from 1 (very poor) to 10 (outstanding). The lowest pass mark is 6
(minimum pass); marks 9 and 10 are rarely given.
• All grades are rounded to the nearest .5 except for those that fall between 5-6, which are rounded
to the nearest whole value.
• You can estimate your Final Course Grade using the following formula/r code:
plyr::round_any(((highest exam grade% *.8) + (practical exercise final grade *.2))/10, 0.5)

Code of Conduct:
All students are expected to follow the Tilburg University Code of Conduct. This includes not only
standards for behavior but also the mission of the university and its core values. The code can be found
here. In line with the code of conduct, I expect you to be respectful and exhibit active participation in the
course. If you are being disrespectful to us or other students, or are otherwise distracting, we will ask you
to leave the class.

Communication/Canvas Messages:
All students are expected to communicate professionally to the course coordinators/instructors, Dr. Eriko
Fukuda and Dr. Peter Hendrix, as well as to each other. This includes in person and by Canvas messages.
If you aren’t sure how to write a profession email, check out this link. That being said, there are way more
of you than there are of us, and as academics, we already receive a lot of messages. Please do not message
us unless it is absolutely necessary. See our instructions regarding questions below.

Mental Health Resources:

Facebook group for especially International students to stay in touch and help each other:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/627480304765612/

Mental Health Information page from Tilburg University:

https://www.tilburguniversity.edu/students/tutoring/psychologist/mental-health

To schedule an individual telephone appointment you can contact the student desk. If you have questions
or want to discuss something over the phone, you can also contact me via e-mail,
[email protected]. Make sure you clearly mention your first and last name,
student number, starting year and telephone number. I will e-mail or try to call you as soon as
possible.
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Questions:

Questions about statistical theory or analyses: If you have questions, check first in the syllabus, the
required readings, or in the lecture slides. If you do not find the answer there, we highly recommend you
post your question to the Canvas Forum. This way all students can benefit from the answer.

Questions about R Programming: We will not reply to messages that inquire as to why your R
code/script does not work. You will need to use Google, GitHub, StackOverflow, and the built-in help
functions to figure out your code. This is an invaluable skill that we utilize on a regular basis. We also
highly encourage you to reach out to your fellow students and form peer groups to learn from each other
and check each other’s code. We’ve seen students effectively help each other using the Canvas discussion
Forum when they post screen shots of their code with replicable examples.

Questions during Class: We highly encourage questions in class, specifically during the periods where
you are given practical exercises. Additionally, we will typically arrive to our class meetings early so you may
approach us and ask any questions you might have then, during the break (although we also enjoy a break
too), or after class.
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Semester Plan:**
Video Online Lecture Topic Required Tutorials Practical Open Stats Lab
Lecture Practical Readings Exercise
Date Session
Due
Date

30 Aug. 2 Sep. Intro to Statistics and CH 1-2

Research Design

6 Sep. NA Intro to R CH 3 & CH 4 1 - Intro to R

Tutorial
2 - More Intro to R

NA 13 Sep. NO LECTURE
(Monday)

20 Sep. 23 Sep. Descriptive Statistics Ch 5 3 - Descriptive Statistics PE 1 - 26 Sep. Do People Feel Immoral
After Behaving
Inauthentically?

27 Sep. 30 Sep. Graphing in R Ch 6 4 – Graphing in R

4 Oct. 7 Oct. Statistical Theory & CH 10 & 11 5 – Statistical Theory PE 2 - 10 Oct.

Hypothesis Testing and Research Design

11 Oct. 14 Oct. Issues with NHST CH 10 & 11 Questionable Research

Practices

NA NA MIDTERM EXAM PERIOD (18 Oct. - 22 Oct.) PE 3 - 24 Oct.

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25 Oct. NA Non-parametric CH 12 6 – Non-Parametric Why do people fail to

analyses Tests follow through on
good intentions?

1 Nov. 4 Nov. T-tests CH 13 7 - One Sample T- PE 4 - 7 Nov.

Tests

8 Nov. 11 Nov. T-tests CH 13 8 - Independent Does Music Convey

Sample T-Tests Social Information to
Infants?

15 Nov. 18 Nov. Analysis of Variance CH 14 9 - One-Way PE 5 - 21 Does Sharing a Painful

(one-way) ANOVA Nov. Experience with Other
People Lead to More
Trusting Relationships?

22 Nov. 25 Nov. Analysis of Variance CH 16 10 - Factorial Do People Judge

(factorial) ANOVA Physical Distances of
Locations Based on
Their Psychological
Orientation Toward
Them?

29 Nov. NA Final Exam Review PE 6 - 5 Dec.

NA 9 Dec. NO LECTURE

NA NA FINAL EXAM PERIOD (13 Dec. - 17 Dec.)

NA NA RESIT EXAM PERIOD (10 Jan. - 28 Jan.)

** Please note that this plan is subject to change.