DATA SCIENCE IN PSYCHOLOGY.

Catalog description

To live in the modern world is to leave digital data traces that provide insights into an individual's habits, choices, social networks, interests, and a range of personal identity markers (such as political views). The rapid growth of this data presents researchers with new avenues to evaluate and understand human cognition and human behavior, while simultaneously raising concerns of privacy, bias, and ethics. For researchers in psychology, "big data" also provides an additional methodological angle to complement existing research methodologies. This course surveys data science approaches to research, focusing on implications and opportunities in psychology. Topics include collecting, accessing, and analyzing data, as well as the tools and technologies commonly used in processing human-generated data. The course will also introduce construct creation where data is used to model and predict cognitive constructs and anticipate changes to those constructs. Additional emphasis will be on the skills needed by individual researchers as well as the broader implications of wearables and immersive environments (such as VR and AR) that capture psychophysiological data on the future of research in psychology.