Hi,

I've been shortlisted for a psychology PhD and have my interview on monday. I am currently going through all the posts on here getting advice on the interview, how to prepare etc.

I have been told I have to complete a brief 'data management task' which will take 15 minutes prior to my interview. I assume this will involve a stats task. I am good at statistics and got firsts in most undergrad assignments and exams. Although I obviously used stats for my final year project, I had a year out in between my 2nd and 3rd year, and we did not do any taught modules on stats in the final year. I am therefore rusty and don't think I would perform well on the task even though I am good when I know what to revise.

Has anyone had to do a similar task? Do you have any advice?

I should also say that the PhD is a more applied clinical PhD, its funded research for the child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) so may not be as academic as other ones. Do you think this may mean the task is a little easier?!

Thanks

Emily

I don't know much about pyschology but I know the topic is quite maths orientated. Because of this you may be given a large dataset that you have to sort and then plot. This is only a guess and I may therfore suggest that you make sure you are a demon at excel!

A lot of trouble you can get into is by not sorting your data very well or not setting up spread sheets in a way where you can find the data you are looking for quickly. This is only a guess, good luck and let us know what they WERE looking fow afterwards.

Thanks. I'm quite good with excel, I don't think that's disappeared from my memory so I should be ok if its that. Yea I'll let you know what it is they wanted me to do on monday.

Thanks

Emily

i would have a good look at spss over the weekend if i were you and fiddle around with imaginary datasets.