Deepening your analysis

Research Methods — Week 7 Application

Today’s plan

A flexible session

Today is about whatever your project needs most.

Track A: ANOVA

For groups with 3+ categories.

ANOVA → TukeyHSD → effect sizes.

Track B: Refine t-test

For groups with 2-group comparisons.

Assumptions → transform → Cohen’s d → CI.

• [10 min] Setup. Pull latest changes. Today should feel like a supervised lab, not a structured lecture.

Questions?

Submit questions anonymously:

PollEv.com/geol

text geol to 07480 781235

• Open the Poll Everywhere Q&A activity before the session and leave it active throughout.
• Questions appear in your Poll Everywhere presenter view; upvoted questions rise to the top.
• Address during transitions or at the end of concept blocks, not mid-explanation.
• Reset (archive) the activity between sessions so questions don’t carry over from the previous week.

Goals for everyone

By the end of today:

1. Run and interpret your main statistical test
2. Check assumptions
3. Calculate and report an effect size
4. Write a results paragraph for your report

• Students who finish: secondary analysis, subgroup exploration, or start producing report-quality figures.

Brief guided example

🎓💻 Quick demo

Complete analysis in 10 minutes

🖥️ Switching to WebR

Track A: ANOVA → TukeyHSD → η²

Track B: t-test → QQ plot → log-transform → Cohen’s d + CI

• [15 min] Keep it brief. One complete worked example. Students need maximum work time today.

Group work

✏️💻 Your analysis

Work time

55 minutes. Work on your project.

We’ll be circulating. If you need help, raise a hand.

Challenge questions we’ll ask:

• What’s your effect size?
• What’s the confidence interval?
• Would you make a policy recommendation based on this?

• [55 min] Circulate actively. Priority: help groups who are stuck; challenge groups who are coasting.

Cross-group check-in

💬 30-second updates

What did you test? What did you find?

Each group: 30 seconds.

• What you tested
• What you found
• What you’re worried about

• [15 min] Quick round-robin. Instructor highlights common themes across groups (e.g., “Several of you have skewed data — remember to check and transform”).

Wrap-up

Commit your work

Commit analysis code and results to your group repo.

Next week: “Models and their limits”

What is a model? What can go wrong when you build one?

And a new question to add to your collection:

“What is the model not capturing?”

• By the end of this session, every group should have run at least one statistical test with effect size and assumption checks.