MATLAB- is it very significant???

[shiaben]

How significant is MATLAB for a Clinical Psychology program?

I know SPSS is important for all kinds of programs.

But is MATLAB highly recommended to learn if you're an undergraduate student? They are offering it this quarter in my university as an upper division course.

Do you have to be highly knowledgeable in languages like C+, Javascript etc.? Or can people that have no background in programming languages still learn the program efficiently and get down the basic fundamentals of how to run the program?

Kind regards

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[aequitasveritas]

How significant is MATLAB for a Clinical Psychology program?

I know SPSS is important for all kinds of programs.

But is MATLAB highly recommended to learn if you're an undergraduate student? They are offering it this quarter in my university as an upper division course.

Do you have to be highly knowledgeable in languages like C+, Javascript etc.? Or can people that have no background in programming languages still learn the program efficiently and get down the basic fundamentals of how to run the program?

Kind regards

SPSS is all you need. Learn how to manipulate and work from SPSS syntax and you're research life will be easier as well.

 

[Ollie123]

I'm going to have to disagree pretty strongly with aequitas, this will depend heavily on your research area.

If you plan on going into psychophysiology, knowing Matlab will be virtually necessary - there is simply no way you could conduct some of those analyses in SPSS - heck even in Matlab it can take hours for the processing to complete once you start it going. It might be possible to replicate the syntax in SPSS (I can't say for certain, but would never want to try), but Matlab was designed for efficient computing - I don't even want to think about how long it would take SPSS to run that kind of analysis. Even if not Matlab, there are a number of more advanced analytic techniques that aren't really feasible to run in SPSS and require other software (e.g. SAS, R). Programming languages fewer people will use, but can be helpful.

Now, that doesn't mean that everyone needs these things, but if you are planning a research career in certain areas it would be very helpful to walk in with some background. I know of two labs where familiarity with Matlab is pretty much a prerequisite for admission - students who don't know it are unlikely to even get interviews. That said, its certainly possible to learn these things on your own when you need to, so whether or not you want to take a formal class in undergrad is up to you.

 

[futureapppsy2]

Moving to Clinical Psych, as I think you'll get more responses there.

SPSS still reigns king in most of psych research, but I think other stats packages, esp. R (although I heard it is moving away from being freeware soon, so that will probably shake things up, too), are gaining in popularity/use in the field.

 

[Psychology 76]

I'm going to have to disagree pretty strongly with aequitas, this will depend heavily on your research area.

If you plan on going into psychophysiology, knowing Matlab will be virtually necessary - there is simply no way you could conduct some of those analyses in SPSS - heck even in Matlab it can take hours for the processing to complete once you start it going. It might be possible to replicate the syntax in SPSS (I can't say for certain, but would never want to try), but Matlab was designed for efficient computing - I don't even want to think about how long it would take SPSS to run that kind of analysis. Even if not Matlab, there are a number of more advanced analytic techniques that aren't really feasible to run in SPSS and require other software (e.g. SAS, R). Programming languages fewer people will use, but can be helpful.

Now, that doesn't mean that everyone needs these things, but if you are planning a research career in certain areas it would be very helpful to walk in with some background. I know of two labs where familiarity with Matlab is pretty much a prerequisite for admission - students who don't know it are unlikely to even get interviews. That said, its certainly possible to learn these things on your own when you need to, so whether or not you want to take a formal class in undergrad is up to you.

+1 to this post.

also, if you want to do any fMRI research, matlab is vital.

 

[aequitasveritas]

I'm going to have to disagree pretty strongly with aequitas, this will depend heavily on your research area.

If you plan on going into psychophysiology, knowing Matlab will be virtually necessary - there is simply no way you could conduct some of those analyses in SPSS - heck even in Matlab it can take hours for the processing to complete once you start it going. It might be possible to replicate the syntax in SPSS (I can't say for certain, but would never want to try), but Matlab was designed for efficient computing - I don't even want to think about how long it would take SPSS to run that kind of analysis. Even if not Matlab, there are a number of more advanced analytic techniques that aren't really feasible to run in SPSS and require other software (e.g. SAS, R). Programming languages fewer people will use, but can be helpful.

Now, that doesn't mean that everyone needs these things, but if you are planning a research career in certain areas it would be very helpful to walk in with some background. I know of two labs where familiarity with Matlab is pretty much a prerequisite for admission - students who don't know it are unlikely to even get interviews. That said, its certainly possible to learn these things on your own when you need to, so whether or not you want to take a formal class in undergrad is up to you.

Dissent...will not be tolerated! ha. I admit to ignorance in psychophysiology stats specifics