Statistics- how is it taught??

How is the statistics taught on psychology Hons degrees???

Is it by computer based tools or is alot of it working it out manually??

Is it really that easy, or not??? xx :p:

Reply 1

GodspeedGehenna

3

During my first year, we did it ALL by hand, we didn't even touch SPSS. I think it is a very important aspect of Psychology and departments that teach it purely with SPSS are letting their students down.

I can send you a .pdf of the equations sheet we used if you fancy?

Reply 2

timetokill

13

For all except one of our assignments in first year we used SPSS (computer based), but for our exams we needed to know how to do stuff by hand. So I imagine that depending where you study it will vary.

Second year all our assignments have been computer SPSS based, and exams its been manual again.

Reply 3

Mitothy

I think thats something which varies quite a bit depending on the uni. We did virtually everything on the computer and you could get good grades without knowing any formulae. That said, you did need to learn the theory behind it all such as why degrees of freedom matter and why certain statistical tests are appropriate for some things but not others, as well as the broad underlying workings of certain methods of analysis and the relavence of this to output etc.

GodspeedGehenna

During my first year, we did it ALL by hand, we didn't even touch SPSS. I think it is a very important aspect of Psychology and departments that teach it purely with SPSS are letting their students down.

While I would almost prefer to learn the formulae, that's cos I did A-level maths and a lot of people are obviously going to struggle with the hefty maths element which would then get in the way of them actually understanding core aspects.

Departments who teach SPSS in an A to B to C button pressing fashion that could be picked up by trained monkeys, would be letting their students down, but I honestly don't think any actually do that, they just teach the theory without having to memorize algebra. If you can still select and perform all of the correct analyses, understand why you're doing them and what the output/results mean, then who cares if you've used a computer or a slide rule?

Reply 4

IWantSomeMushu

17

Statistics is taught through 8 out of 10 cats :smile:

Statistics- how is it taught??

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