UCA · Research Methods · ATU Letterkenny

Statistics 101
for Cyberpsychologists

The concepts behind your data — in plain language

An interactive course, reference textbook, and real dataset — all built around one dissertation's worth of data. Learn hierarchical regression, PLS-SEM, multiple imputation, and more. Then reproduce every example yourself in R.

📐
Key Finding
Moral Disengagement → CA β = .61
p < .001
🔬
AI Factors Block
ΔR² = .01 — null finding
p = .43
👥
Dataset
n = 167 · 4 scale variables · ~8% missing
Synthetic
🧩
Methods Covered
11 modules · PLS-SEM, MI, HReg
Interactive
Three Resources
Use This as a Starting Point

This entire resource — course, textbook, data guide, dataset and R script — is open source. Fork it, adapt it for your own study or teaching. Swap in your own data. Change the colour scheme. Add modules. Build something better.

bash
# Clone the repository
$ git clone https://github.com/todd427/stats-course.git
$ cd stats-course

# Install dependencies
$ npm install
added 142 packages in 4s

# Start local dev server
$ npm run dev
  VITE v5.x  ready in 312ms
  ➜  Local:   http://localhost:5173/
  ➜  Network: use --host to expose

# Build for production
$ npm run build
dist/ ready — deploy to Cloudflare Pages, Netlify, or Vercel
Repo Structure
src/App.jsx — the interactive course
public/book.html — the textbook
public/data.html — data guide
public/data/ — CSV + R script
public/index.html — this page
Adapting It
Replace the dissertation numbers in App.jsx with your own. Each module's data is at the top of its component. Swap the CSV and update the R script. The colour theme is in CSS variables — one block to change everything.
Deploy
Push to GitHub. Connect to Cloudflare Pages. Set build command npm run build, output dist. Done. Free tier handles any plausible academic traffic.
Stack
Vite · React · Recharts · KaTeX. No backend. No database. No auth. Static files only — that's the whole secret to it being fast and free to host.
About This Resource

This resource grew out of a practical problem: the statistical methods used in a cyberpsychology dissertation — hierarchical regression, PLS-SEM, multiple imputation — are poorly served by existing introductory texts, which either assume too much mathematical background or too little domain context.

The approach here is different. Every concept is anchored to a real research question: does AI use predict cyber-aggression, above and beyond moral disengagement? The answer — a meaningful null — turns out to be a better teaching example than a clean positive result would have been.

The dataset is synthetic but statistically faithful. The R script is annotated to be read, not just run. The course is built to be felt, not just watched. Take what's useful. Improve what isn't. The repo is open.

Author
Todd McCaffrey
foxxelabs.ie
Programme
MSc Cyberpsychology
ATU Letterkenny, Ireland
Dissertation
Understanding Cyber-Aggression through AI Use, Trust & Personality Factors (UCA)
Licence
MIT — free to use, adapt, redistribute