Week 1 Overview
| Dates | 19 January 2026 - 23 January 2026 |
| Reading | Required: SCIU4T4 Workbook chapters 1-2 |
| Recommended: None | |
| Suggested: Navarro and Foxcroft (2022) Section 2.1 | |
| Advanced: Wickham (2014) (Download) | |
| Lectures | Module introduction: MON 19 JAN 11:00-12:00 in Logie LT (desk, theatre, slides) |
| Tidy data and data files: WED 21 JAN 09:00-10:00 in Cottrell LT A4 (desk, theatre, slides) | |
| Practical | Preparing data (Chapter 3) |
| Room: Cottrell 2A15 | |
| Group A: 21 JAN 2026 (WED) 11:00-14:00 | |
| Group B: 22 JAN 2026 (THU) 09:00-12:00 | |
| Help hours | Brad Duthie |
| Room: Cottrell 1A11 | |
| 23 JAN 2026 (FRI) 11:00-13:00 | |
| Assessments | Week 1 Practice quiz on Canvas |
Week 1 focuses on background mathematics and data organisation.
Chapter 1 reviews some background mathematics that is relevant to introductory statistics. The chapter focuses on the very basics of numbers and mathematical operations, and also reviews logarithms (which are especially relevant for data visualisation and transformation) and the order of mathematical operations.
Chapter 2 focuses entirely on data organisation. Before actually doing any statistics, it is important to be able to organise data in a way that can be understood by other researchers and interpreted by statistical software. The chapter explains what to do after data have been collected in the field or laboratory. Being able to organise data in the correct format and manage data files appropriately is critical for successfully using jamovi (or any statistical software).
Chapter 3 provides some practical skills for organising datasets and preparing them for statistical analysis. The aim of this chapter is for the reader to learn how to take data recorded in the field, laboratory, or some other source and put it into a format that can be used in jamovi. Four exercises use data on fig seed counts, fig wasp egg counts, fig wasp counts, and fig wasp morphological measurements from the Sonoran Desert Rock Fig (Ficus petiolaris) in Baja, Mexico. Datasets are available online. The chapter introduces spreadsheets as a tool for data organisation. Spreadsheets are sometimes necessary (or just helpful) to use for viewing and organising data prior to opening a dataset in jamovi.