PSY-40107 - Module Specification
School of Psychology
Faculty of Natural Sciences

Programme/Approved Electives for 2024/25

Available as a Free Standing Elective

Co-requisites

None

Prerequisites

None

Barred Combinations

None

Description for 2024/25

A 2016 survey of over 1500 researchers by the prominent journal Nature found that 90% believed there is a 'reproducibility crisis'; in research. The factors leading to a lack of reproducibility are complex and many, ranging from the behaviour of individual researchers through to the incentive structures within academic publishing and funding. This module will provide an in-depth exploration of the main threats to reproducible research together with concrete solutions to counter these. The module will also provide hands-on experience of data analysis with an open-source statistical program and how to create a fully reproducible report of quantitative data analysis. The module will leave you well-positioned to enhance the trustworthiness and quality of the research you conduct.

This module will introduce students to various issues related to enhancing reproducibility in research. The module will be a combination of content-based material (outlining current issues around reproducibility, delivered via synchronous and asynchronous material) together with hands-on experience with tools to aid reproducibility (such as analysis in JASP).

Intended Learning Outcomes

describe and explain a range of threats to reproducibility in research and a range of proposed solutions to these threats: 1
identify and evaluate the key issues relating to reproducibility relevant to the students' primary area of research: 1
conduct data processing and simple analyses / visualisations using an open-source statistical programming platform: 1
use open-source software tools to produce a report of data analysis: 1

Study hours

- 24 hours of scheduled teaching (interactive, discussion-based etc.)
- 24 hours of guided asynchronous learning (roughly 1 hour per week for content preparation, and 1 hour per week on learning and practicing with JASP and other open source tools)
- 102 hours preparing the Reproducible analysis report

School Rules

None

Description of Module Assessment