Course selection
Introduction to Statistics for the Humanities and Digital Humanities Part 1
Audience: Academic staff, PG research, Professional staff, Research staff
Date: Monday 12 October 2026 to Monday 31 May 2027
Times: null
Key details: Introduction to Statistics for the Humanities and Digital Humanities Learn about the basic statistical concepts and exploratory data analysis suitable for those working and studying the humanities.
Target audience
This course is not open to students on an undergraduate degree or to students on a taught postgraduate degree programme.
Qualifications needed
None
Course pre-work
None
Course information
Introduction to Statistics for the Humanities and Digital Humanities is a course designed specifically for those working in the humanities. The aim of this course is to introduce basic statistical concepts and analysis methods suitable for the humanities and introduce ways in which statistics can be used by scholars of the humanities. The focus is on practical application of statistics, rather than theory, and uses R/RStudio to implement the methods. The whole course is split into two parts and participants can do one or both parts.
Aims and objectives
The course content is divided as follows:
Semester 1
I Introduction – why use numbers?
II Data visualisation
III Probability
IV Sampling
VI Testing hypotheses
Semester 2
VI Testing hypotheses (end of)
VII Introduction to the linear model (a very flexible form of statistical modelling)
The course includes a substantial practical component and the methods covered will be implemented using the statistical programming language R and user-friendly environment RStudio.
The whole course is spread over semesters 1 and 2 and there will be a guided programme for self-paced study. Course material (lecture notes, exercises and computer practicals) will be available on Moodle.
There will be an in-person introductory session in week 5 (TBC) to get you started and throughout the course there will be online help sessions, and a final in-person session to finish the course. You are encouraged to attend the introductory session in-person to meet the tutor and provide feedback. Participation in the help sessions is optional.
The weekly time commitment is anticipated to be about 2-3 hours per week (working through the course notes and associated computer practical and attending any help session).
Tutors
CREEM Staff
Course provider
St Leonard's Postgraduate CollegeEmail: stlc@st-andrews.ac.uk