This is a session of Topic 7: Statistics education and the wider society
(Friday 16th, 11:00-12:30)
Statistics in psychology and the social sciences
Organizer
- Carmen Díaz (Spain)
Abstract
Nowadays there is no doubt that a basic statistics knowledge is required in the pre-service training of professionals in Social Sciences and in particular of Psychologists. This training must be oriented to develop the students’ competence in defining research problems, measuring the implied variables, identifying appropriate techniques of data collection and statistical analysis, using statistical packages and interpreting the results.Planning for this teaching should also take into account frequent difficulties, such as the variety of the initial formation of these students, the shortage of time and resources, the diversity of the professional training of lecturers implied in these subjects, as well as the students’ attitudes, emotions and beliefs.
In this session we will discuss these issues as well as possible approaches to improve the statistical training of Psychologists.