IA127-3-FY-CO:
Statistics for Psychology
2024/25
Essex Pathways
Colchester Campus
Full Year
Foundation/Year Zero: Level 3
Current
Thursday 03 October 2024
Friday 27 June 2025
30
04 November 2024
Requisites for this module
(none)
(none)
(none)
(none)
(none)
BA C807 Psychology (Including Foundation Year),
BSC C812 Psychology (Including Foundation Year),
BSC C813 Psychology with Cognitive Neuroscience (Including Foundation Year),
BSC C817 Psychology with Economics (Including Foundation Year)
The module covers the statistical skills needed to proceed to any degree course within the Department of Psychology. The syllabus covers statistical methods including data collect and analysis, distributions and hypothesis testing.
The associated work in classes and lab exercises develops the skills used to solve relevant problems, with classwork and assignments being set and full solutions provided where appropriate as part of the feedback process.
The module aims are:
1. To ensure that students from a wide range of educational backgrounds have an understanding of statistical methods needed within the study of Psychology.
2. To develop the ability to acquire knowledge and skills from lectures, classwork exercises, and appropriate software and application of theory to a range of ongoing tasks.
3. To develop students' ability to use these skills in their subsequent degree course.
4. To equip students with the techniques needed to collect and analyse data, calculate statistical measures and to clearly structure their solutions and conclusions.
5. To give students the ability to present and interpret data clearly and unambiguously, both by hand and with the use of Excel software.
6. To give students an understanding of data distributions and the ability to set up hypothesis tests.
On successful completion of this module a student is expected to be able to:
1. Understand sampling methods for data collection;
2. Understand and calculate basic statistical measures of centrality and spread;
3. Understand and interpret basic statistical graphs, including using Excel to analyse data and produce various graphs;
4. Understand the normal distribution and be familiar with other common distributions;
5. Understand basic probability;
6. Understand basic statistical inference and able to conduct simple hypothesis tests.
7. Understand correlation and simple regression.
Syllabus
Data collection: methods to ensure data is unbiased.
Descriptive statistics: interpreting data, measures of location and dispersion.
Displaying data: Constructing and analysing histograms and other graphs.
Distributions: normal distribution and other common distributions.
Inference Statistics: hypothesis testing and statistics tables.
Using Excel to carry out statistical computations, create graphs and interpret data.
Measures of dispersion and central tendency, probability, correlation and regression
Practical application of statistics to Psychology related problems.
Skills for your professional life (Transferrable Skills)
This module offers you numerous transferable and professional skills such as:
a) Application of Statistics: Statistics is applied in almost every scenario which involves data. This is extremely useful in everyday life and many disciplines including psychology, medicine, public health, business, science, engineering etc. In real world, we need to collect data and apply statistical techniques to the data to learn the underlying causes and relationships, and to make correct decisions.
b) Using graphs to see patterns in data and to present the evidence: Another exciting skill you will learn is to make different graphs for visually showing patterns and trends in the data and also to present the results.
c) IT skills: you will learn the exciting use of technology for accurate and speedy statistical analysis by using Microsoft Excel software. Excel is widely sued in everyday life data management and analysis by researchers, business communities, government bodies etc. Excel makes the application of statistics and data analysis easy. Learning excel is a great skill you can use in your future studies as well as in your work career. Further, by using NUMBAS in lab activities, you learn how to use software to get instant results from your problem-solving activity. This is a vital tool in many applications and environment where extensive statistics and mathematics are used.
d) Logical approach: doing advanced topics such as inferential statistics help you to develop additional skills in planning, analysing, and learning methodical and logical approach to problem-solving. These skills are transferrable to many areas of your future studies and work.
Teaching and learning on Essex Pathways modules offers students the ability to develop the foundation knowledge, skills, and competences to study at undergraduate level, through a curriculum that is purposely designed to provide an exceptional learning experience.
The module is delivered via a weekly 1 x 1-hour lecture, 1 x 2-hour class and 1 x 1-hour computer lab. Students are expected to complete the Moodle based online assignments/activities in their own individual study time. Support for this is provided through academic support hours and email. In total, there are 22 weeks of teaching, including two weeks of revision lectures and classes in the Summer Term.
All lecture notes and worksheet exercises are placed on Moodle prior to the teaching event for easy student access. Solutions to worksheet exercises are also placed on Moodle after the teaching event is concluded to aid with revision. Listen Again is also used as part of learning support in which students can reviews the recordings at a later date.
This module does not appear to have any essential texts. To see non - essential items, please refer to the module's
reading list.
Assessment items, weightings and deadlines
| Coursework / exam |
Description |
Deadline |
Coursework weighting |
| Coursework |
Online Lab Assignment 1 - 15/11/24 |
|
5% |
| Coursework |
In-person, Open Book (restricted) Test - 18/11/24 |
|
25% |
| Coursework |
Online Lab Assignment 2 - 29/11/24 |
|
5% |
| Coursework |
Online Lab Assignment 3 - 13/12/24 |
|
5% |
| Coursework |
Online Lab Assignment 4 - 07/02/25 |
|
5% |
| Coursework |
Online Lab Assignment 5 - 07/03/25 |
|
5% |
| Coursework |
Online Lab Assignment 6 - 21/03/25 |
|
5% |
| Coursework |
Written Report |
09/05/2025 |
45% |
Additional coursework information
Formative assessment
Students engage in completing weekly worksheets, online assignments and receive in class and online feedback.
Summative assessment
Two-hour timed online test (20%)
The test will cover statistics concepts taught in the first six lectures of the module. These include: data collection and sampling methods, descriptive statistics, measures of centrality and dispersion, and data transformation.
Online lab assignments (30%)
Marks obtained by completing online assignments throughout the year.
Report (1,000 words, 50%)
The report consists of a written project in which students have to organise a data set, analyse the data based on the research questions and report their findings.
Reassessment strategy
Failed coursework - resubmit a 24-hour take home test which will be marked as 100% of the new module mark. The reassessment task will enable the relevant learning outcomes to be met.
Exam format definitions
- Remote, open book: Your exam will take place remotely via an online learning platform. You may refer to any physical or electronic materials during the exam.
- In-person, open book: Your exam will take place on campus under invigilation. You may refer to any physical materials such as paper study notes or a textbook during the exam. Electronic devices may not be used in the exam.
- In-person, open book (restricted): The exam will take place on campus under invigilation. You may refer only to specific physical materials such as a named textbook during the exam. Permitted materials will be specified by your department. Electronic devices may not be used in the exam.
- In-person, closed book: The exam will take place on campus under invigilation. You may not refer to any physical materials or electronic devices during the exam. There may be times when a paper dictionary,
for example, may be permitted in an otherwise closed book exam. Any exceptions will be specified by your department.
Your department will provide further guidance before your exams.
Overall assessment
Reassessment
Module supervisor and teaching staff
Dr Fowad Murtaza, email: fmurta@essex.ac.uk.
Dr Fowad Murtaza (fmurta@essex.ac.uk)
Helen Hearn (hhearn@essex.ac.uk)
No
No
No
Dr Austin Tomlinson
University of Birmingham
Lecturer
Available via Moodle
Of 27 hours, 16 (59.3%) hours available to students:
8 hours not recorded due to service coverage or fault;
3 hours not recorded due to opt-out by lecturer(s), module, or event type.
Essex Pathways
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