Statistics and Methodology Courses: Interdepartmental Variability in Undergraduate Majors' First Enrollments

Abstract

Transcripts of 784 psychology alumni from 4 universities revealed that students' timing of first enrollments in a statistics or methodology course was the result of an interaction between personal preferences and differences in program requirements. Where only a single methodological course was mandatory, first enrollments were especially late in students' careers. In departments having multiple methodological requirements, negative correlations between the timing of first method course versus first content course (e.g., clinical, developmental) indicated that the precedence of 1 category meant a delay for the other. We offer recommendations for increasing students' direct early exposure to scientific methodology in psychology.