Kasia Banas
SSI fellow
University of Edinburgh
Interests
- Reproducible research in psychology
- Teaching data science to non-programmers
- Learning analytics
My work
I am a psychologist by background, now working as a senior lecturer in data science for health and social care, which is primarily a teaching post. My team leads a Masters programme and short CPD courses for practitioners who want to develop data science skills to transform the health and care sector. We also teach data science to undergraduate students, primarily on programmes that don’t traditionally teach coding (e.g. medicine).
My own adventure with transparency and reproducibility in research started when my previous academic department was making a transition from teaching statistics in SPSS to R. It required a change in mindset, and positioned statistical analysis as part of a larger effort to improve research workflows. During that time, I learned R and embraced open science principles, spreading the enthusiasm to all my students.
My research is now focused mostly on teaching and learning, and I want to know how best to teach coding skills, especially to people who do not see themselves as coders. I use learning analytics and survey methodologies to find out how students learn, and how we can help them learn better.
Online Presence
Check out contributions by and mentions of Kasia Banas on www.software.ac.uk