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Psychology and associated maths problem

Hi

Re: Psychology/Sociology Joint Honours Maths Component

I've been advised by UCL Senior Lecturers, both in person and by email, that my current maths certification is sufficient to gain entry to this course next year (subject to a formal interview and examination on a lecture I must attend). I will obviously be applying to four other universities too and they are all saying the same thing. The problem is that it's been over three decades since I last studied any math. Yes that is right - I am an old fart!

Question(s):

•

I want to brush up on my maths to ensure I am not at a disadvantage when I start the degree programme.

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So, If I was to get one GCSE and one A Level maths textbook from the library, which area of maths should I be focussing upon?

•

I think I only want to focus on the stuff relevant to psychology and sociology research methods, data manipulation and interpretation. If I am correct in my assumptions, what type of maths is that?



Many thanks for any feedback. It really is appreciated. I will give rep to all who can offer advice that proves, after careful evaluation, to be constructive.

@Mods - I hope I have posted in the right place. Apologies if this in the wrong section, but I was unsure where to post this type of query! Please feel free to move!!!!!
(edited 10 years ago)
I wouldn't get an A Level text book, unless you studied up to that level before. GCSE would be sufficient, but I don't know what areas to focus on I'm afraid
Depends what you can do, really. I would get a GCSE book and see what you can do from it.
A lot of a level and GCSE maths isn't really used in psychology!

Go through https://www.khanacademy.org/math/ to see what you've forgotten. However only the https://www.khanacademy.org/math/probability probability and statistics section will be useful to you. It may assume some basic algebra but with khan academy you can go back and study what you like (for free!)

If your keen doing the https://www.khanacademy.org/math/probability/descriptive-statistics descriptive statistics course will be usefull. Normally however psychology lectures will cover this stuff, but if you don't understand the basic algebra/mathematical concepts then it may be more difficult to learn.

Things like mutliplication tables / knowing how to do long division aren't really that useful.
To answer your last question, for data analysis you will need to understand, PROBABILITY, DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS, INFERENTIAL STATISTICS and SPSS/R/software of choice.
Psych degrees always start at the very basic level anyway which will cover all this. I wouldn't spend time looking at computer software for data analysis yet deffos.

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