Admission requirements
None
Description
In the master Statistics and Data Science the curriculum is mostly focused on statistical and data science techniques, their (mathematical) foundations, their application, and how to implement them using programming languages. All these skills are necessary to be successful as a data scientist, but they are mostly about numbers. And these numbers can mean very different things depending on the context or work field that they come from. An essential skill for statisticians/data scientists is thus to know how to make these numbers meaningful and insightful to others, be it your scientific peers, your colleagues, the executive board, or the general public. This requires domain knowledge of different research fields as well as knowledge on how to clearly communicate.
In this course we will introduce you to research in the three prominent fields of our master:
Clinical, Epidemiological, and Observational Medical Research, (Leiden University Medical Center)
Plant Genetics, Genomics and Phenomics (Wageningen University)
(Neuro)Psychological Research, (Leiden University).
We want to introduce you to what working in one of these research areas looks like: what questions are answered, what statistical methods are usually employed, and how does data translate into useful concepts? We achieve this by going on research visits to different departments and conducting an interview with prominent researchers in these fields.
Course Objectives
The overall aim of this course is to introduce students to important areas of application of statistics and data science methods in the Life and Behavioural Sciences. Students will also develop their soft skills (presenting and working in teams). More specifically, students should, at the end of the course:
Be able to work in a group with diverse backgrounds.
Be able to conduct and summarize an interview.
Be able to give a presentation adapted to a specific audience.
Have knowledge of the research conducted / work done in one of the different subfields in the Life and behavioural sciences.
Timetable
You will find the timetables for all courses and degree programmes of Leiden University in the tool MyTimetable (login). Any teaching activities that you have sucessfully registered for in MyStudyMap will automatically be displayed in MyTimeTable. Any timetables that you add manually, will be saved and automatically displayed the next time you sign in.
MyTimetable allows you to integrate your timetable with your calendar apps such as Outlook, Google Calendar, Apple Calendar and other calendar apps on your smartphone. Any timetable changes will be automatically synced with your calendar. If you wish, you can also receive an email notification of the change. You can turn notifications on in ‘Settings’ (after login).
For more information, watch the video or go the the 'help-page' in MyTimetable. Please note: Joint Degree students Leiden/Delft have to merge their two different timetables into one. This video explains how to do this.
Mode of instruction
The course consists of a mix of lectures, workshops, and research visits.
Assessment method
Students will work in small groups to prepare a final presentation based on the research visit and the interview. The final grade will be based on the quality of, and performance on, the presentation (40%), the quality of the interview summary (40%), and the evaluation of group work (20%). A resit possibility is scheduled in consultation with the teacher.
Reading list
Literature will be specified during the course; no books are required.
Registration
Every student must register for courses with the new enrollment tool MyStudymap. There are two registration periods per year: registration for the fall semester opens in July and registration for the spring semester opens in December. Please see this page for more information.
Please note that it is compulsory to register for every exam and retake. Not being registered for a course means that you are not allowed to participate in the final exam.
Extensive FAQ on MyStudymap can be found here.
Contact
w [dot] d [dot] weeda [at] fsw [dot] leidenuniv [dot] nl