Some Advice for Psychologists Who Want to Work With Computer Scientists on Big Data

Abstract

This article is based on conversations from the project “Big Data in Psychological Assessment” (BDPA) funded by the European Union, which was initiated because of the advances in data science and artificial intelligence that offer tremendous opportunities for personnel assessment practice in handling and interpreting this kind of data. We argue that psychologists and computer scientists can benefit from interdisciplinary collaboration. This article aims to inform psychologists who are interested in working with computer scientists about the potentials of interdisciplinary collaboration, as well as the challenges such as differing terminologies, foci of interest, data quality standards, approaches to data analyses, and diverging publication practices. Finally, we provide recommendations preparing psychologists who want to engage in collaborations with computer scientists. We argue that psychologists should proactively approach computer scientists, learn computer scientific fundamentals, appreciate that research interests are likely to converge, and prepare novice psychologists for a data-oriented scientific future.