Jeromy Anglim's Blog: Psychology and Statistics


Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Online Mathematics Video Courses For Self Study in Psychology

This post provides links to free online video courses on mathematics and statistics.

Overview:

Understanding statistical models and quantitative procedures in psychology can be enriched by a deeper understanding of mathematics. For some of my undergraduate students this simply means revising high-school mathematics, such as basic algebra and basic probability. For research students using more sophisticated quantitative methods such as structural equation modelling, multilevel modelling, item response theory, multidimensional scaling, or any number of more advanced procedures, a deeper understanding can be obtained from learning a little more mathematics. Many of the the text books on these procedures assume a good understanding of: Algebra; Calculus; Matrix Algebra; Probability; Statistics; and Linear Models.

For students wanting to acquire such a mathematical understanding, free online self-study materials are improving all the time. While working through books and doing exercises is a critical part of the learning process, it is also beneficial to hear how mathematics lecturers talk about mathematics. In this vein, I have found online full length video courses particularly useful.

The full length video courses listed at Academic Earth and Cosmo Learning are good. More videos are available through Khan Academy. The Free Science Blog also lists science and maths videos. Specifically, the following lists courses useful for researchers in psychology wanting to improve their mathematical understanding:

Algebra and Introductions

Linear Algebra

Calculus

Probability

Statistics:

Text Books

There are also many free online text books that pertain to the above courses. A quick Google Search will tend to reveal many. A nice refresher of much of the above is here. See also this list of free books.