Methods in Behavioural Biology

In this course, we will practice and discuss essential components of the behavioural research process, mostly in chronological order, as they would come up during your own thesis project. The first part will focus on important considerations when deciding on your study approach, your study design, your behavioural measurements protocol and your data management. The second part will focus on selected study techniques in animal behaviour. The third part will focus on data analysis, discussing key components of data analysis in general, such as data exploration, and some specific challenges and solutions to analysing behavioural data. Finally, we will discuss the importance of transparent reporting. Throughout the course, we will introduce you to a number of freely available software that we frequently use in the collection and analysis of behavioural studies, such as the event-logging software BORIS and the statistical software R. You will also gain experience with retrieving scientific literature.

After successful completion of this course students are expected to be able to:

• Implement suitable sampling methods to quantify behavioural observations and recordings
• Choose a suitable study approach, design and data source to test hypotheses about a given behaviour
• Identify key biases in behavioural research, and the methods to overcome them, in all phases of the research cycle
• Describe key aspects of good practice in data organisation and management in all phases of the research cycle
• Explain how statistics can inform choices on study design
• Appraise the replicability and suitability of the methodological approach of a given behavioural study by writing a preprint review

Assumed Knowledge:
BHE20303 Animal Behaviour