If the previous three courses were slightly thin on actual mathematics, but generally well done, this one just ups the ante in a wrong way, throwing so many things at you in the same timespan that it's simply inscrutable. The course on linear regression would've been a 15 minute tangent in this one. I say this as someone who is mathematically inclined and already has a degree in engineering, so this is usually easy breezy for me when it's actually presented well. This wasn't the case. I feel like I actually haven't learned anything, since the only way I pulled through was through rote memorization and constantly consulting the literature. The R "lessons" were also shallow, and you will definitely need another course (or several) to learn these things properly. Hard pass.

The pace of this specialization increased rapidly with this course. It of course makes sense that as the specialization goes on, the coursework would become more challenging and require more time. However, this was such a leap from previous courses that I feel as if it should be in a different specialization. In every lesson, I felt inundated with complex calculations and formulas that were way above my head. I think that this course spend way too much time on theory (and breezing through it!) and not enough time on R. Why not walk us through multiple Bayesian examples in R? That would actually be helpful. As is, this is a course that I needed to sog through for the specialization. One star.

After a brilliant start of the specialization with courses Introduction, Inference and Regression, the Bayesian course comes as a harsh disappointment.

Weeks 1 and 2 give a useful introduction to Bayes' rule. However, I haven't learnt anything of significance after that. The main instructor's explanations are unclear, and in almost every single video there's a point where there's just too much confusion to get the overall message. This is extremely frustrating and, as mentioned, in sharp contrast to the other courses.

In my opinion this course would urgently need to be re-recorded. Preferably, with a lot more input from Dr Cetinkaya-Rundel, who's an extremely gifted teacher.

I don't understand how come this course can get such high reviews. My experience with this course is horrible. First of all, most quiz are poorly designed, lots of mistakes. For instance, there are 10 Qs in week 1, 3 of them have mistakes. Wasted me tons of times.

Lectures are also difficult to follow. Instructors usually just give formulas without further explanation. I forced myself to go through them until week 4, I finally give it up. I feel like it is a waste of my time. I need to find a better course on this topic.

Most coursera courses are very well designed. This one is the worst I have ever experienced.

Unlike the previous sections in this specialization, this one has no reading material, nor does it have many problem sets to solve. You will definitely need to find external resources in order to complete this section, because numerous concepts are glossed over, explained vaguely, or explained poorly. I recommend Kruschke's "Doing Bayesian Data Analysis" as a very accessible way to learn Bayesian statistics. I'd have no confidence using Bayesian approaches in practice from only the material taught in this section. Frankly, this section seems like it was hastily thrown together, and I was very disappointed.

This course needs much more work from instructors before it gets offered to the public. It is poorly assembled, offers hardly comprehensible material with no or very few resources to turn to. Reading material is listed, but they are useful for people already skilled in Bayesian Statistics. Exercises are worded such, that even the questions are a challenge to understand. Quizzes contain material never mentioned during lessons. Discussion forums are left unanswered by the teaching staff - or if they reply, they do it in a very negligent manner. No support on the merits. A major disappointment.

This course is awful, especially compared with the rest of the courses in the specialization. I had to read an entire Bayesian statistics text book in order to understand this area, and this courses still made little sense. This specialization is supposed to be for beginners and yet this course gets into intense mathematical notation with no preparation or guidance. I have somewhat of a math background, and this course was not only extremely difficult to finish, I don't feel like I really learned much of anything at the end. This course needs to be redesigned from the ground up.

While I have taught basic statistics courses and have a PhD, I have no prior background in Bayesian Statistics. The coverage of Bayesian concepts lacks sufficient depth for a novice in Bayesian statistics and the materials provided do not provide any further depth. None of the texts I have on hand cover Bayesian statistics at all. The focus of the specialization is supposed to be on learning R as applied to statistics. Between the unfamiliarity of Bayesian statistics and the use of an experimental version of a function in Week 3, I learned essentially nothing about using R.

Unlike the first 3 courses of this specialization, which were excellent, this one is not recommendable at all. As many other students have reported, the teaching material is not enough neither to understand the subject nor to do the graded material. I am really disappointed because the problem seems to come at least 4 months ago but the teacher (which by the way is far to be as good as Mine) has not replied. Instead, mentors have suggested to use the forums to make questions but it is neither affordable nor acceptable.

The course is too sketchy: it does not provide enough materials to grasp the main ideas of Bayesian Statistics nor it gives any details about some formulas and important principles.

This course does not have a book to follow along as the previous courses had (statistics).

I had to spend more than 2 months to be able to understand all the concepts that this course was trying to teach. In this sense watching Youtube videos and reading papers was much more helpful than the entire course itself.

This class assumes a lot of statistical knowledge and background that is not covered in the first three classes of the series. So much statistical terminology and jargon was used by the instructor, it felt like taking a class in another language where I had to constantly stop the video and google for the terminology she used. It took a lot of grit to finish the class, which was overall a very demoralizing and negative experience.

The material has not enough contextualization. The explanations are way to superficial. Its not necessary to explain everything, but even the intuition is lost. The teachers dont help: except from Çetinkaya-Rundel the others read from a telemprompter and one even has to wonder if they know what theyre saying. It seems that theyre more worried to dont loose the pace of the teleprompter than to convey meaning.

While the first 3 courses had ample examples, guided practices, and other tools to learn, this course does not. Quizzes do not have good explanations, and videos do not have guided practice. There is no book to follow, hence, learning the material is difficult.

Instructors need to rework the course to include books, guided practices, and guided R examples in order to aid comprehension.

A frustrating course, especially when compared to the other courses in this specialization. Lectures alternated between over my head and not giving enough information. Projects seemed designed for someone with a better grasp of R. I will probably look for another course on Bayesian statistics, because I feel my grasp of these concepts is still weak.

The information felt purely academic. I know we were show how professionals have used this type of analysis before, but those examples were way more advanced than the scope of this course. Moreover, the scope of the course was too broad. More information on how to model non-linear data would have been more valuable than this.

The change of instructors negatively affected this class. The new instructors are nowhere near as good at explaining the data and tending to start talking about things without even explaining what they where to to use a lot of activations, which one would need to continually look up.

Very poor explanation in week 3, the new professor is not explaining the definitions or the use of them properly. Too many jargons.

Professor doesnt explain the use of prior predictive distribution and just introduces the formula without any consideration for explanation

No efforts on maintaining the quality of assignment. You will be hard or never to finish them.

Too much information concentrated in one course without clear elaboration. It should be separated to 2~3 courses.

The course lacks of explanation and it's very difficult to follow. It seems that the instructor just reads the slides without reasoning and explanation. Suggested reading materials are needed.

A huge leap from the other courses in the specialization, which are all extremely well-constructed. Terms are not introduced and explained properly, and the whole course seems very haphazard.

1St problem speed of teaching, also other students complained

2With such a speed, material was too condensed for such a broad subject

3Not sufficient explanations for a statistics beginner

This course is not well-presented. Lectures are unimaginative, and there isn't enough supporting material or readings.

Quizzes are not related to videos. There is very limited practice problems (the best way to learn math subjects).

I get really frustrated when the tutor doesn't explain lots of concept/symbols in the materials.....

There is almost no one taking this course so getting the peer review can take forever