Using Confidence Tricks to Make People Learn Maths & Stats

Mathematics and Statistics for Social Scientists (MSSS) is a course offered as part of the Foundation Degree in Management (FDM) programme at the School of Management and Organizational Psychology at Birkbeck College, London. MSSS is offered in the first term of the first year of the FDM programme, at the Certificate level (Level “C”). The weekly sessions, consisting of 3 hours, are run as combined lectures and seminars. Since Birkbeck is a higher education institution that caters primarily to part-time….. We get the impression that many of our students think maths & statistics is irrelevant to their future careers (perhaps maths seems as useful as memorising the name of every crater on the moon). We found the best way to get them to learn maths is to use ‘confidence tricks’, i.e. trick them into becoming confident. ….