This page compiles resources that people in the Psychology department recommend for students interested in gaining quantitative skills of various kinds. Note that through Pitt we have access to many courses through LinkedInLearning. Some are provided below, but you can find many more that fit your particular needs.
Suggestions to be added should be sent to Prof. Ben Rottman (rottman@pitt.edu). Undergrads, please suggest resources you have found helpful as well!
Data Science Generally
| Type | Description | Recommender, year |
|---|---|---|
| LinkedIn course | Introduction to DataScience on LinkedIn Learning. There are many follow-up courses. | Rottman 26 |
R Data Science and Statistics Resources
R is the most commonly used programming language for data science.
| Type | Description | Recommender, year |
|---|---|---|
| app | Positron is posit's new next-generation free programming environment. It probably makes sense to start learning with Positron rather than RStudio. Check out this tour. | Rottman 26 |
| app | Rstudio is posit's older programming environment for programming in R. Rstudio helped popularize R as a programming language and in many ways was synonymous with R. | Rottman 26 |
| packages | Tidyverse is a set of open source packages released by posit that helped to bring R into the mainstream. Though there are alternative packages in R to do similar things, they are so common that when people refer to doing data science in R they often really mean using these packages. dplyr for data manipulation and ggplot2 for graphing are especially useful. R for Data Science is a free online book that introduces data science in r with the Tidyverse. The cheatsheets are handy sheets that have key functions. | Rottman 26 |
| LinkedIn course | Getting Started with R for Data Science | Rottman 26 |
| packages | Text / string processing in R using stringi or stringr | Lizar 26 |
| Tutorial | Pitt Psychology grad student Geoff Lizar has made a tutorial Basics_of_R.Rmd meant to teach the basics of R, RStudio, and some simple Tidyverse/graphing. It uses the ToothGrowth example dataset from the datasets package in R, and does not require additional files to run in RStudio. He has had success with handing this file to self-starting RAs along with a data file and a set of analysis-related questions (for practicing the concepts in the Rmd file), then going over their answers and code together to double-check their work. | Lizar 26 |
Python Data Science and Statistics Resources
Python is also a very commonly used programming language for data science.
| Type | Description | Recommender, year |
|---|---|---|
| app | Positron was also built to natively work with Python | Rottman 26 |
| app | Rstudio now also works with Python | Rottman 26 |
| LinkedIn course | Learning Python and Python Data Analysis | Rottman 26 |
| Online Book with Videos | Learning Python the Hard Way. (Fraundorf, 2026 | Fraundorf 26 |
Jamovi Data Science and Statistics Resources
Jamovi is a free stats program with a graphical user interface (GUI). It is now the GUI stats app that is most commonly used for teaching within the Psychology department at Pitt, and it is also now taught in STAT 0200 that many Psychology majors take. Jamovi is also built on top of R.
| Type | Description | Recommender, year |
|---|---|---|
| app | Jamovi Desktop, downloading jamovi onto your computer, is the best way to use jamovi. Using jamovi, as well as most stats software, is best done on a laptop, not a tablet. We do not recommend using jamovi cloud's free version because if there are too many users at once you may not be able to use it, sessions only last 45 minutes and terminate after 5 minutes of idle time, so you can lose your work. | Rottman 26 |
| app | Jamovi is also available online through Pitt's virtual computing lab. If you run into problems with Pitt's virtual computing lab, submit a help ticket. Pitt's IT drop-in support can also be very helpful. | Rottman 26 |
| youtube videos | datalabcc has great videos about how to do lots of things in jamovi | Rottman 26 |
Neuroscience Resources
| Type | Description | Recommender, year |
|---|---|---|
| youtuve videos | Principles of fMRI by Martin Lindquist and Tor Wager. Good overview of fMRI principles | Alvarez 26 |
| youtube videos | Andy's Brain Tube by Andy Jahn. Helpful videos on how-to do neuroimaging analyses | Alvarez 26 |