PSY9511 – Machine learning
Course content
The field of machine learning is devoted to building methods that identify patterns in data, in order to make automated predictions or decisions.
Machine learning is becoming an increasingly important method in psychology as datasets increase in size and complexity, e.g. data from registers or brain imaging. The goal of this course is to give PhD students an introduction to machine learning that will enable them to apply these tools in their own research, and to further navigate the literature. The lectures will cover core concepts and give an overview of different methods suitable to different research problems. Through practical exercises, students will get introduced to important software packages like keras and xgboost. The students can choose between using R or Python for the practical exercises.
Learning outcome
Knowledge:
- Understand the concepts supervised learning, unsupervised learning, and reinforcement learning.
- Distinguish between regression and classification, and basic familiarity with core classification methods such as discriminant analysis, na?ve bayes, support vector machines.
- Understand the issue of overfitting, cross-validation, training, test, and validation sets.
- Machine learning methods for variable selection
- Tree based methods (random forests, gradient boosting)
- Deep learning methods for image and text data
- How machine learning differs from classical statistics
- Unsupervised methods such as clustering
Skills:
- Be able to specify machine learning models for new research questions.
- Implement machine learning models using appropriate software.
Admission to the course
Master and PhD students can apply for the course.
This is an elective course in the PhD-programme in psychology.?PhD candidates at PSI need to sign up to the course in Studentweb. Please contact the administration if you have problems to sign up in Studentweb.?
PhD candidates at the Department of Psychology will be given priority, but it is also possible for others to apply for the course. You can apply to the course through this online form.
The registration form opens on December 3rd 2024. The registration deadline is written in the online form and you will receive an email shortly after the deadline if you got admitted to the course.
All candidates need to be signed up in Studentweb before the first day of teaching.?
Recommended previous knowledge
Students entering this course should have some background in programming, ideally in R or Python.
Teaching
The teaching will be organized into eight three-hour seminars. The seminars consist of a mix of short lectures introducing they day’s topic, and work on practical exercises supervised by the teacher.
Examination
A total of eight practical exercises need to be handed in.
Grading scale
Grades are awarded on a pass/fail scale. Read more about?the grading system.
More about examinations at UiO
- Use of sources and citations
- Special exam arrangements due to individual needs
- Withdrawal from an exam
- Illness at exams / postponed exams
- Explanation of grades and appeals
- Resitting an exam
- Cheating/attempted cheating
You will find further guides and resources at the web page on examinations at UiO.