| Psychology 217-218: General Information | Psychology 217-218: 2001 Specific Information |
Psychology 217-218 is a mathematically sophisticated course. If your math skills are weak, you will be miserable and will probably end up dropping the course.
There is another course, Psychology 213, that suffices for the Psychology Department statistics requirements for majors. NOTE: Psychology 213 is insufficient for a BS degree, but if your math skills are weak, you should not be getting a BS degree.
Officially, calculus is a prerequisite for Psychology 217-218. If, however, you have not had calculus, but are still generally strong in mathematics, you can probably get by.
Calculators are a minimal requirement for the course. Ideally, you should have a "statistics calculator" which allows computation of sums and sums of squared input numbers.
A laptop computer is encouraged. Laptops are allowed during exams, and generally make your life much easier, particularly if you are proficient at Excel.
All computations, both on homework assignments and on exams, will be vastly easier if you know how to use and have regular access to Microsoft Excel. In addition, I will periodically be making available useful Excel spreadsheets on this web site.
Excel will be useful to you throughout your life, whether you ever use statistics again or not.