Getting Started!

Date: 09/10/2025

What makes science…good science?

Replication & Reproducibility

Replication: The process of applying the same methodology with a different sample and research group

Reproduction: Taking all materials from a study and coming to the same conclusions

Replication & Reproducibility 🍰

I want to bake a cake!

  1. Find a recipe online (try ignoring their life story narrative)
  2. Get ingredients (Wegmans if you 💰)
  3. Follow recipe and bake 🧑‍🍳
  4. Enjoy the delicious cake 🍽️

Replication

Replication & Reproducibility 🍰

I want to bake a cake!

Reproduction

  1. Find a recipe online –> Find their kitchen
  2. Get ingredients –> Use their ingredients
  3. Follow recipe and bake –> Watch what they do and follow
  4. Enjoy the delicious cake –> Enjoy cake (and jail for B&E)

Replication & Reproducibility 📊



Replication Reproducibility
Have a similar research question Use the same research question
Collect your own data Use their data
Follow their steps with your resources Follow their steps with their resources
Outcome: Similar results (depends on other factors) Outcome: Identical results

Replication & Reproducibility 📊

Goals of Science

Important: We want to replicate other researchers work

MOST Important: Be able to reproduce all of our results

You are your own worst collaborator!

Does this play out in the field??

Garden of Forking Paths

100 Replication Studies Adequately Powered

Original Studies:

  • Mean Effect: 0.403

  • % with p<.05: 97%

Replication Studies:

  • Mean Effect: 0.197

  • % with p<.05: 47%

What can we do about it? 🤷

 

Installing and Using R

From the course website

Modern Statistics Using R

Working with R-Studio

R-Studio is just like a kitchen 🧑‍🍳

The Environment pane is the pantry/fridge

The Console is like the oven/stove

The Markdown document is the recipe

The bottom right sometimes acts as the little window on the oven where you can see things baking

Creating a Project puts these things in their place & Establishes your working directory

Getting Started in R-Studio

  • Start with a Blank Slate

  • Make the code work for you

  • This is your space - make it look the way you want

Start with a Blank Slate

  • Navigate to Tools >> Global Options

  • By default, R Studio saves all of the objects in your environment. In general, this is not ideal, because it means that you may have taken steps interactively that are not documented in your code.

Code/IDE Updates

  • Navigate to Tools >> Global Options >> Code >> Display

  • Check these options:

    • “Allow Scroll past end of document”

    • “Use rainbow parentheses”

  • Navigate to Tools >> Global Options >> Appearance

Next Steps

  • Create a project

  • Set up a Markdown Document

  • Run and Knit the document

Note

This is a reminder to Dr Haraden to talk to everyone about keyboard shortcuts.