Appendix – mathematical requirements
In order to develop their skills, knowledge and understanding in psychology, students need to have been taught, and demonstrate competence, to select and apply the following areas of mathematics relevant to research methods in psychology.
Arithmetic and numerical computation
- Recognise and use expressions in decimal and standard form.
- Use ratios, fractions and percentages.
- Estimate results.
Handling data
- Use an appropriate number of significant figures.
- Find arithmetic means.
- Construct and interpret frequency tables and diagrams, bar charts and histograms.
- Understand the principles of sampling as applied to scientific data.
- Understand the terms mean, median and mode.
- Use a scatter diagram to identify a correlation between two variables.
- Know the characteristics of normal distributions.
- Understand range as a measure of dispersion.
- Understand the differences between qualitative and quantitative data.
- Understand the difference between primary and secondary data.
- Translate information between graphical and numerical forms.
- Plot two variables from experimental or other data and interpret graphs.
All mathematical content must be assessed within the lifetime of the specification.
