BI Learning & Careers
Developing and practicing your Behavioural Insights knowledge and skills opens up many opportunities for adding behavioural insights to your work. For example, you will be able to create behaviourally-informed products, policies, and processes; use the scientific method to evaluate the impact of new or improved programs, policies, and products; and learn how to nudge for good — how to use BI ethically and guard against misuse.
*Resources are continually being added to this page. Submit suggestions to dibs@sauder.ubc.ca.*
Resources for BI Learning & Careers
Sampling of Common Behavioural Insights Learning Pathways:
This infographic outlines a sampling of BI learning pathways, but keep in mind that there are nearly as many different BI paths as there are BI professionals. Use this as a starting point for your explorations, not as a map to follow.
BI Knowledge & Skills Matrix:
This infographic provides a high-level overview of the combinations of knowledge and skills commonly needed for different categories of BI roles. The terminology, levels, and combinations are illustrative and will vary between organizations.
How Business & Policy DISCIPLINES Relate to BI:
This infographic shows some of the points of intersection between BI and other common business and policy disciplines. It also suggests resources for further learning about these intersections.
Downloadable versions
OUR OTHER Resources
- The Calling DIBS podcast has episodes profiling BI careers in different sectors, providing advice for BI careers, and discussing graduate school in the behavioural sciences.
- This BIG Difference BC blogpost showcases how BI practitioners use Behavioural Insights in their work.
Third-Party Resources
- The Disentanglement Project: This blogpost by Rhiannon Mosher describes her journey from anthropology PhD to qualitative research specialist in BI units.
- Gosnell, E. (2022, July 11). How to become a behavioral scientist. Irrational Labs. https://irrationallabs.com/blog/how-to-become-a-behavioral-scientist/
- Holzwarth, A. (2019, April 29). Where to look for jobs in applied behavioral science. Medium. https://alineholzwarth.medium.com/where-to-look-for-jobs-in-applied-behavioral-science-25ff43b6ea54
- Howes, E. (2022, April 3). Finding a job in behavioural science using behavioural science. Medium. https://medium.com/behavior-design-hub/finding-a-job-in-behavioural-science-using-behavioural-sci-e7319b5eb1b0
- Kotamarthi, P. (2021, August 5). A guide to career paths in behavioral science. Social Science Space. https://www.socialsciencespace.com/2021/08/a-guide-to-career-paths-in-behavioral-science/
- Rozarina, J. (2023, December 6). Full-stack behavioural scientist: A complete guide. Beyond Nudge. https://www.beyondnudge.org/post/full-stack-guide
- Transition Q&A: This series of blogposts by “From PhD to Life” discusses career transitions, with a focus on moving from academic careers to applied careers.
UBC’s Behavioural Insights Programs
UBC’s Decision Insights for Business & Society (UBC-DIBS) and UBC Sauder Continuing Business Studies have partnered with a nationwide steering committee to develop and offer Behavioural Insights programs geared toward working professionals:
- Fundamentals of Behavioural Insights: Learn how BI creates positive behaviour change and add a BI lens to how you approach problems. This part-time online course introduces Behavioural Insights, experimentation, and ethics over the course of three weeks. Offered multiple times per year.
- Advanced Professional Certificate in Behavioural Insights: Become a BI Practitioner and design and evaluate BI solutions in your workplace. This rigorous, live online program combines coursework and a capstone project to help you develop your BI knowledge and skills over the course of nine months. The program runs September-May each year; application deadlines are May 31 (early) and June 30 (late).
- Scholarship Opportunities: There are a number of funding opportunities for the full certificate program, including the BIG Difference BC scholarship, BC Pacific Leaders Scholarship (for BC Public Servants), and more.
Learn more about these programs by reading our brochure or signing up for the next webinar.
Master’s Programs in the Behavioural & Decision Sciences
Most Master’s programs are not specifically focused on the practice of Behavioural Insights, instead they provide a grounding in the Behavioural and Decision Sciences (the fields upon which the practice of Behavioural Insights draws). Below we provide a non-exhaustive list of Master’s programs with a focus on Behavioural Science and Behavioural Economics programs.
- Programs are listed alphabetically within region. Most programs seem to be in Europe and the US. As far as we know, there is not currently a Master’s program in Canada.
- The list does not include programs in Public Policy, Public Health, or other related fields.
- The list includes a mix of part-time and full-time, in-person and online, research and executive programs.
- List items are not vetted in terms of program attributes or quality.
- For more information, visit the program websites. (The DIBS faculty are also always happy to chat with any of our former students interested in pursuing a Master’s in the Behavioural and Decision Sciences.)
United Kingdom
- City University of London: Master of Science in Behavioural Economics
- Kingston University London: Master of Science in Behavioural Decision Science
- London School of Economics:
- Middlesex University London: Master of Science in Behavioural Economics in Action
- Queen Mary University of London: Master of Science in Behavioural Finance
- University of Bath: Master of Science in Applied Psychology and Economic Behaviour
- University College Dublin: Master of Science in Behavioural Economics
- University College London:
- University of East Anglia: Master of Science in Behavioural and Experimental Economics
- University of Edinburgh: Master of Arts in Psychology and Economics
- University of Essex: Master of Science in Behavioural and Experimental Economics
- University of Leeds: Master of Science in Business Analytics and Decision Sciences
- University of Nottingham: Master of Science in Behavioural Economics
- University of Reading: Master in Behavioural Finance
- University of Stirling: Master of Science in Behavioural Science
- University of Warwick: Master of Science in Behavioural and Economic Science
The Netherlands
- Erasmus University Rotterdam: Master of Science in Behavioural Economics
- Leiden University: Master of Science in Economic and Consumer Psychology
- Maastricht University: Master in Human Decision Science
- Radboud University: Master of Research in Behavioural Science
- Tilburg University:
- University of Amsterdam: Master of Science in Behavioural Economics and Game Theory
- University of Groningen: Master of Research in Behavioural and Social Sciences
Elsewhere in Europe
- France: University Paris Descartes: Master in Economics & Psychology
- Germany: University of Kassel: Master in Economic Behaviour and Governance
- Germany: University of Cologne: Master of Arts in Behavioural Ethics, Economics, and Psychology
- Italy: University of Italy: Master in Behavioural Economics & Neuromarketing
United States
- Chapman University: Master of Science in Behavioural and Computational Economics
- Chicago School of Professional Psychology: Master in Behavioural Economics
- University of Arkansas: Master of Arts in Applied Behavioural Science
- University of Pennsylvania: Master of Behavioural and Decision Science
Are we missing a program? Send us a note at dibs@sauder.ubc.ca.
PhD Programs in the Behavioural & Decision Sciences
As with Master’s programs, the majority of PhD programs are not specifically focused on the practice of Behavioural Insights, instead they provide a grounding in the Behavioural and Decision Sciences (the fields upon which the practice of Behavioural Insights draws).
- Most major universities have programs in relevant fields, such as Psychology, Marketing, Organizational Behaviour and Human Resources (sometimes called Management), Economics, Public Policy or Political Science, and Public Health.
- Any given program may be more or less relevant to a Behavioural Insights career, depending on the faculty, their research areas, and the set of available courses. For more information, visit program websites. (The DIBS faculty are also always happy to chat with any of our former students interested in pursuing a PhD in the Behavioural and Decision Sciences.)
- Here’s a sampling from UBC:
Resources for Learning About Data & Statistics
Resources for Beginners
- The Seeing Theory website aims to make statistics more accessible through interactive visualizations. This is a great place to start for those with no stats training. They also have a free draft textbook.
- The online Glossary of Statistical Terms defines and explains a wide variety of terms and phrases related to data and statistical analysis.
- “Psychology Statistics for Dummies” is an introductory textbook that is not free, but it comes highly recommended by former students who were nervous about stats.
- “Improving Your Statistical Inferences” is an online educational resource with information to improve statistical inferences, design better experiments, and report scientific research more transparently.
- “Learning Statistics with R“ is an online textbook provides an introduction to statistics for psychology students and includes examples using the stats program R.
- YouTube has a number of great stats tutorials, including:
- The Data Demystified series explains how data works in the real world to help you understand statistics and data science without all the jargon or even math. Key topics include statistical & practical significance, distributions, confidence intervals, type I and type II error, and signal vs. noise.
- The StatQuest series covers basic to advanced statistics plus machine learning and AI.
- Professor Daniel Lakens has a series of stats videos covering topics including p-values, sample sizes, and type I and II errors and other topics.
- Professor Richard McElreath has a series called Statistical Rethinking and a lecture on causal inference.
Free Statistical Analysis Software Programs
- JASP is an open-source statistics program that is free, friendly, and flexible
- R is a free statistic program that is very powerful, but requires more time investment to learn and use.
Resources About Storytelling with Data
- “Fundamentals of Data Visualization” is an online textbook that serves as a guide to making visualizations that accurately reflect the data, tell a story, and look professional.
- “Telling Stories with Data” is an online textbook that will help you tell stories with data, with a focus on the programs R and Python.
- “The Best Stats You’ve Ever Seen” is a TED talk that uses Gapminder to present data that debunks myths about world development.
Further Learning: Statistics Courses
Most universities have a range of data and statistics courses ranging from introductory courses to micro-certificates to Master’s programs. Here is a small subset:
- UBC Sauder Continuing Business Studies data courses & programs
- UBC Extended Learning data courses & programs
- UBC Department of Statistics courses & programs, including “Exploratory Data Analysis” which offers many free, online resources
- University of Victoria data analytics programs, including “Data Analytics Coding Fundamentals“
Further Learning: Articles & Blogs About Stats
- “How the Guinness Brewery Invented the Most Important Statistical Method in Science” is an article in Scientific American about the origin and use of t-tests.
- Data Colada is a blog about current events and methodological questions, including covering stories of data fraud.
- The 20% Statistician is a blog on statistics, methods, philosophy of science, and open science.
- Statistical Thinking is a blog devoted to statistical thinking and its impact on science and everyday life.
- Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science is a blog about a variety of topics (as described in the title).
- Hyndsight is a blog about “research, forecasting, statistics, and other distractions”.
- My 2 Cents is a substack about statistics, epidemiology, clinical trials, and academia.
Further Learning: Academic Articles About Doing Stats Well
- Cohen, J. (1994). The earth is round (p<. 05). American Psychologist, 49(12), 997. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.49.12.997
- Cumming, G., & Finch, S. (2005). Inference by eye: Confidence intervals and how to read pictures of data. American Psychologist, 60(2), 170. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.60.2.170
- Kass, R. E., Caffo, B. S., Davidian, M., Meng, X. L., Yu, B., & Reid, N. (2016). Ten simple rules for effective statistical practice. PLoS Computational Biology, 12(6), e1004961. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004961
- King, G., Tomz, M., & Wittenberg, J. (2000). Making the most of statistical analyses: Improving interpretation and presentation. American Journal of Political Science, 347-361. https://doi.org/10.2307/2669316
- Tong, C. (2019). Statistical inference enables bad science; statistical thinking enables good science. The American Statistician, 73(sup1), 246–261. https://doi.org/10.1080/00031305.2018.1518264
- Zuur, A. F., Ieno, E. N., & Elphick, C. S. (2010). A protocol for data exploration to avoid common statistical problems. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 1(1), 3-14. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2041-210X.2009.00001.x
With many thanks to Craig Hutton, Vince Hopkins, David Hardisty, and Melinda Deines for sharing recommended resources.
Job Boards & Leads
Many Behavioural Insights newsletters and organizations advertise jobs; check out our list of recommended newsletters.
Third-Party Job Boards
- BE-Recruit: http://www.be-recruit.com/jobs
- Behavioral Economics: https://www.behavioraleconomics.com/jobs
- Behavioral Science & Policy Association: https://behavioralpolicy.org/jobs-and-calls/
- Indeed: https://www.indeed.com/q-Behavioural-Insights-jobs.html
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=behavioural%20insights
Recent Wiki Posts About Learning & Careers
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