Choose your own adventure
The course is structured in a “choose your own adventure” format, so there isn’t a set content for each week.
Each week, you will attend two classes:
A one-hour seminar.
A two-hour lab.
Note that you are divided in two groups, so that the seminar and lab run twice each week, you just need to attend one of the seminars and one of the labs each week.
The seminars will have a different major theme each week, which you will have to research before class and discuss in groups in class.
You are also expected to learn quantitative methods outside of class, at your own time (as in a flipped classroom). This website has a list of entries in the Adventurer’s Notebook. You are not restricted to those posts, and you can learn from other resources, however if this is the very first time you are learning quantitative methods I recommend you stick to those since they have been curated for beginners. You can find a map of how the different posts build on each other in the Adventurer’s Map.
The labs will create the opportunity for you to practice quantitative data analysis with R. Each week you will pick a “challenge” from a list or come up with your own challenge and work towards solving it using R. More details will be shared soon.
As part of the Assessments, you will have to complete a group project. You can start working on the project any time during the course, but the last two labs will be dedicated to working on your project while being able to get help from the instructor (Stefano) and the Tutors.
Schedule overview
The following tables gives you an approximate schedule of the weekly themes, although they are subject to change also in light of your preferences. Check the week-by-week boxes below for a more detailed description of what you should be doing each week.
Recommended textbooks
There isn’t a required course textbook as such, but the majority of the course content are covered in the recommended textbooks.
Weekly breakdown
In the seminar
- Come to the seminar class. We will go through the course format, assessment and other practicalities.
In your own time
Carefully read the homepage of the Course website.
Complete the Intake Form (the link to the form can be found on the Learn website).
Install R, RStudio and Quarto: please, follow the instructions in the Setup page. You should do this before the first lab class.
Write your weekly self-reflection.
In the lab
In your own time
In the seminar
In the lab
In your own time
In the seminar
In the lab
- Group activity: pick a Challenge or continue working on one.
In your own time
Read Inference and uncertainty and Plotting basics (make sure you read the pre-requisites too!).
Pick and read any other entry/ies from the Notebook. Feel free to read from any other source, including the recommended textbooks.
Write your weekly self-reflection.
In the seminar
In the lab
- Group activity: pick a Challenge or continue working on one.
BEFORE THE SEMINAR
In your own time
Read Introduction to regression models (Part I) (make sure you read the pre-requisites too!).
Pick and read any other entry/ies from the Notebook. Feel free to read from any other source, including the recommended textbooks.
Write your weekly self-reflection.
In the seminar
In the lab
In your own time
Read Regression: categorical predictors (make sure you read the pre-requisites too!).
Pick and read any other entry/ies from the Notebook. Feel free to read from any other source, including the recommended textbooks.
Write your weekly self-reflection.
In the seminar
In the lab
- Group activity: pick a Challenge or continue working on one.
In your own time
I recommend LEL students doing a dissertation this year to continue reading the entries on regression modelling for the rest of the course, because the vast majority of dissertation projects in linguistics entail statistical modelling using some type of regression. Feel free to book Stefano for a chat on specific topics depending on the area of research of your dissertation.
Read Frequentist statistics and p-values
Pick and read any other entry/ies from the Notebook. Feel free to read from any other source, including the recommended textbooks.
Write your weekly self-reflection.
In the seminar
In the lab
- Group activity: pick a Challenge or continue working on one.
BEFORE THE SEMINAR
In your own time
Watch the Data Analysis Workflow pre-recorded lecture. You can find the slides here.
Pick and read any other entry/ies from the Notebook. Feel free to read from any other source, including the recommended textbooks.
Write your weekly self-reflection.
In the seminar
In the lab
- Group activity: pick a Challenge or continue working on one.
BEFORE THE SEMINAR
In your own time
Pick and read any other entry/ies from the Notebook. Feel free to read from any other source, including the recommended textbooks.
Write your weekly self-reflection.
In the seminar
In the lab
- Group activity: complete the Reporting entry.
In your own time
Watch the Data Analysis Workflow pre-recorded lecture. You can find the slides here.
Pick and read any other entry/ies from the Notebook. Feel free to read from any other source, including the recommended textbooks.
Write your weekly self-reflection.
In the seminar
In the lab
- Group activity: work on your Group Project.
In your own time
Pick and read any other entry/ies from the Notebook. Feel free to read from any other source, including the recommended textbooks.
Write your weekly self-reflection.
In the seminar
- Group discussion - Reflect on what you learnt.
In the lab
- Group activity: work on your Group Project.