I'm currently a high school student deciding on my senior year courses. I aspire to be a research psychologist, so I am a little confused as to what mathematics course I should take. Should I take AP statistics or pre-calculus honors?(NOTE: I am not bad at math.. I was lazy so I didn't apply for the accelerated course) I've been told by some that calculus is required for psych. but some, not. What course should I take to prepare me for research in psychology?
Math Rigor Required for Psych. Research
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Either one is fine. Most psychology majors require a stats course (or at least mine did and everyone should have one) - if you take AP Stats, you MIGHT be able to skip out on that in college. The course you'd be taking for psych would be a behavioral stats course, though, which goes into research design as well as the relevant statistical analyses, etc.. So, you might not be able to place out of it... I'm not sure what the curriculum for AP Stats is. In any case, if you take AP Stats you'll be way ahead of the game when you need to do your psych stats course. The arithmetic itself should not be difficult for most people, but a lot of people get tripped up on the conceptual part.
More advanced stats is based on calculus (and your AP Stats course might be, too... not sure.) But your undergrad psych stats course would not be. I have taken a masters level research design course which was very similar to my undergrad course (and did not require calculus.) I have NOT, however, taken a doctoral level stats course, but I suspect the sort of course you'd take as a psych PhD would not require calculus, either.
Pre-calculus is not calculus. But, of course you would want it if you plan to continue to calc in college. I CAN say that I took AP Calculus in high school and then both Advanced Integral Calculus and Multivariate Calculus in college... none of which was of any relevance to my psych major, even though my liberal arts college had a very rigorous psych program. Like I said, though, I did not go on to doctoral level work in psych, but I don't imagine any of it would have been needed.
More advanced stats is based on calculus (and your AP Stats course might be, too... not sure.) But your undergrad psych stats course would not be. I have taken a masters level research design course which was very similar to my undergrad course (and did not require calculus.) I have NOT, however, taken a doctoral level stats course, but I suspect the sort of course you'd take as a psych PhD would not require calculus, either.
Pre-calculus is not calculus. But, of course you would want it if you plan to continue to calc in college. I CAN say that I took AP Calculus in high school and then both Advanced Integral Calculus and Multivariate Calculus in college... none of which was of any relevance to my psych major, even though my liberal arts college had a very rigorous psych program. Like I said, though, I did not go on to doctoral level work in psych, but I don't imagine any of it would have been needed.
I want to also point out that even if you enter a PhD program straight out of college, and even if you continue on into calculus in college rather than only taking your pre-calc senior year of high school, by the time you're in your doctoral program, it will have been 4 years since you last had that math. That knowledge will be largely gone. I can guarantee it will not be used in your undergrad psych courses, even in a very good program. On the other hand, the stats you learn in high school will be reinforced by a psych stats class and by use in labs for various courses (although usually you will use a stats computer program in labs but you need to know the concepts behind what the program is calculating.)
I wasn't sure, actually, what your exact question is... are you asking about taking pre-calc because you think you might need calculus for psychology, and you can't take calculus without first taking pre-calc? Or are you wondering about whether pre-calc itself is needed for psychology? Pre-calc - not very useful. But yes, a stepping stone to calculus. I applaud you but at the same time think you might be stressing yourself out a bit since you're only in high school. Your high school courses really have no bearing on getting into or performing in a PhD program. I think at this point the more important question is what do COLLEGES want for admissions. Top colleges want 4 years each of all the major subjects, which for math usually means through calculus. Statistics is useful and also can be difficult, but it's not really part of that usual course of college preparation... algebra (8th grade), geometry, algebra II, pre-calc, calc.. What did you take for math this past year? You might be more competitive to colleges if you at least take pre-calc, even though the most competitive colleges will be expecting you to have gone through calc. This issue is really dependent on the selectivity of the group of schools in which you're interested.
I wasn't sure, actually, what your exact question is... are you asking about taking pre-calc because you think you might need calculus for psychology, and you can't take calculus without first taking pre-calc? Or are you wondering about whether pre-calc itself is needed for psychology? Pre-calc - not very useful. But yes, a stepping stone to calculus. I applaud you but at the same time think you might be stressing yourself out a bit since you're only in high school. Your high school courses really have no bearing on getting into or performing in a PhD program. I think at this point the more important question is what do COLLEGES want for admissions. Top colleges want 4 years each of all the major subjects, which for math usually means through calculus. Statistics is useful and also can be difficult, but it's not really part of that usual course of college preparation... algebra (8th grade), geometry, algebra II, pre-calc, calc.. What did you take for math this past year? You might be more competitive to colleges if you at least take pre-calc, even though the most competitive colleges will be expecting you to have gone through calc. This issue is really dependent on the selectivity of the group of schools in which you're interested.
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I would take stats. You'll get calc in college - pre-calc will help, but isn't strictly necessary (I skipped pre-calc and took college calc as a HS senior).
The degree to which you will need either depends heavily on your exact interests. To have a truly strong stats background, you will definitely need calculus, but very very very few psychologists are at that level (pretty much exclusively those who explicitly specialize in quant/stats). Most won't do a thing with it.
You have cognitive psychologists who never do anything more than very basic stats, and you have cognitive psychologists studying chaos theory. Both types can be successful, it just depends what your interests are.
That said - I agree with others that you are getting ahead of yourself. HS is "general" training. Whether you take stats or pre-calc is unlikely to have any real bearing on your college training in psych beyond maybe letting you spend a little less time studying for a certain class. Picking it based on what you think colleges are looking for is probably more important.
The degree to which you will need either depends heavily on your exact interests. To have a truly strong stats background, you will definitely need calculus, but very very very few psychologists are at that level (pretty much exclusively those who explicitly specialize in quant/stats). Most won't do a thing with it.
You have cognitive psychologists who never do anything more than very basic stats, and you have cognitive psychologists studying chaos theory. Both types can be successful, it just depends what your interests are.
That said - I agree with others that you are getting ahead of yourself. HS is "general" training. Whether you take stats or pre-calc is unlikely to have any real bearing on your college training in psych beyond maybe letting you spend a little less time studying for a certain class. Picking it based on what you think colleges are looking for is probably more important.
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Another PhD student here...I don't think it really matters. I'm inclined to lean stats, but you'll get plenty of math in college. And who knows what you'll end up doing post-undergrad anyway! 🙂 Do you know anything about the teachers of each course?
Frankly, I know people who took no math beyond pre-calc in HS, and no stats then either. I'd imagine you'll be fine either way.
Frankly, I know people who took no math beyond pre-calc in HS, and no stats then either. I'd imagine you'll be fine either way.
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My last math class before stats in my doc program was Algebra II my sophmore year of HS. I've never had calc. I was fine.
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Yeah I tend to agree. Advanced statistics is rooted in calculus and linear algebra, but luckily for us we have computer programs that do the work for us 🙂
I can't speak for every doc. program, but we dug down to the very basics for methods in our program, so having a better math background will help you catch on faster (being used to math terminology and notation, etc.) but is not completely necessary.
Like others have said, if you want to advance the area of research methods, etc. math will be important. For example, the guys that invented hierarchical linear modeling/random coefficient modeling, most certainly had a math background. But if you want to use established statistical procedures to conduct your research math is not extremely important.
I can't speak for every doc. program, but we dug down to the very basics for methods in our program, so having a better math background will help you catch on faster (being used to math terminology and notation, etc.) but is not completely necessary.
Like others have said, if you want to advance the area of research methods, etc. math will be important. For example, the guys that invented hierarchical linear modeling/random coefficient modeling, most certainly had a math background. But if you want to use established statistical procedures to conduct your research math is not extremely important.
