Statistics for People Who (Think They) Hate Statistics

The bestselling Statistics for People Who (Think They) Hate Statistics teaches an often intimidating and difficult subject in a way that is informative, personable, and clear. The authors take students through various statistical procedures, beginning with correlation and graphical representation of data and ending with inferential techniques and analysis of variance. In addition, the text provides instruction in SPSS, and includes reviews of more advanced techniques, such as reliability, validity, introductory non-parametric statistics, and more. The text includes a key feature called "The Path to Wisdom and Knowledge": a flowchart in each of the main chapters showing readers how to select the appropriate test statistic. The Eighth Edition has combined and streamlined chapters so that there are now 14 chapters rather than 19, the end-of-chapter questions have been thoroughly revised, dozens of new research examples have been added, a new section on artificial intelligence chatbots for statistical analyses is provided, the SPSS appendix has been updated for the newest version of the software, and the glossary has been extensively revised and improved for clarity. The text is now available in full color, and available in Sage¿s award-winning Vantage learning platform.

List of contents

A Note to the Student
Acknowledgments
And Now, About the Eighth Edition ...
Ancillaries
About the Authors
Part I: Yippee! I'm in Statistics
Chapter 1: Statistics or Sadistics? It's Up to You
Why Statistics?
Descriptive Statistics and Averages
Computing the Mean
Computing the Median
Computing the Mode
Summary
Activities
Key Terms
Review Questions
Critical Thinking Questions
Chapter 2: What Do Your Data Look Like?
How Much Information Is in Your Variable?
Vive la Différence! Understanding Variability
The Standard Deviation
Using SPSS to Compute Descriptive Statistics
Using the Computer (SPSS, That Is) to Illustrate Data
Key Terms
Activities
Review Questions
Critical Thinking Questions
Chapter 3: Computing Correlation Coefficients
How's Your Relationship?
Computing a Pearson Correlation Coefficient
What's It All Mean?
Ice Cream Causes Crime (Association vs. Causation)
Using SPSS to Compute a Correlation Coefficient
Other Cool Correlations
Parting Ways: A Bit About Partial Correlations
Summary
Key Terms
Activities
Review Questions
Critical Thinking Questions
Chapter 4: Reliability and Validity
Real-World Stats: How Do You Score Physical Activity?
Reliability: Getting It Right the First Time
Different Types of Reliability
Internal Consistency Reliability: To One's Own Self Be True
Interrater Reliability: Agreeing Not to Disagree
How Big Is Big? Interpreting Reliability Coefficients
Validity: What's the Meaning of Life!?
Validity and Reliability: Really Close Cousins
Summary
Key Terms
Activities
Review Questions
Critical Thinking Questions
Chapter 5: The Normal Curve
Distributions and Probabilities
Area Codes: Areas Under the Normal Curve
The Amazing Super-Informative z Score
Using SPSS to Compute z Scores
Fat and Skinny Frequency Distributions
Summary
Key Terms
Activities
Review Questions
Critical Thinking Questions
Chapter 6: Hypotheticals and You
Samples and Populations
The Null Hypothesis
The Research Hypothesis
A Closer Look at Our Two Favorite Hypotheses
What Makes a Good Research Hypothesis?
Summary
Key Terms
Activities
Review Questions
Critical Thinking Questions
Chapter 7: Significance
The Concept of Significance
If Only We Were Perfect
Type I or Type II: Errors in Inferential Statistics
Significance Versus Meaningfulness
An Introduction to Inferential Statistics
An Introduction to Tests of Significance
Be Even More Confident
Summary
Key Terms
Activities
Review Questions
Critical Thinking Questions
Chapter 8: Single Samples
Introduction to the Single-Sample z Test
Computing the z Test Statistic
Using SPSS to Perform a z Test t Test
Special Effects: Do They Matter?
Summary
Key Terms
Activities
Review Questions
Critical Thinking Questions
Part III: Significantly Different
Chapter 9: t(ea) for Two
The Classic Group Comparison: Independent t Test
The Effect Size for a Two-Group Comparison
Using SPSS to Perform an Independent t Test
Using SPSS to Perform a Paired-Samples t Test
Summary
Key Terms
Activities
Review Questions
Critical Thinking Questions
Chapter 10: More Than Two Groups?
Different Flavors of Analysis of Variance
Computing the F Test Statistic
Using SPSS to Compute the F Ratio
The Effect Size for One-Way ANOVA
Summary
Key Terms
Activities
Critical Thinking Questions
Activities
Review Questions
Critical Thinking Questions
Chapter 11: Two (or More) ANOVAs in One
Factorial Analysis of Variance
A New Flavor of ANOVA
The Main Event: Main Effects in Factorial ANOVA
Even More Interesting: Interaction Effects
Using SPSS to Conduct a Factorial Analysis of Variance
Computing the Effect Size for Factorial ANOVA
Summary
Key Terms
Activities
Review Questions
Critical Thinking Questions
Chapter 12: Correlation Coefficients and Regression
Remember the Correlation Coefficient?
Computing the Test Statistic
Linear Regression
Drawing the World's Best Line (for Your Data)
How Good Is Your Prediction?
Using SPSS to Compute the Regression Line
Multiple Regression: The More Predictors the Better? Maybe
Summary
Key Terms
Activities
Review Questions
Critical Thinking Questions
Part V: More Statistics! More Tools! More Fun!
Chapter 13: Chi-Square and Some Other Nonparametric Tests
Introduction to Nonparametric Statistics
Introduction to the Goodness-of-Fit (One-Sample) Chi-Square
Computing the Goodness-of-Fit Chi-Square Test Statistic
Introduction to the Chi-Square Test of Independence
Using SPSS to Perform Chi-Square Tests
Other Nonparametric Tests You Should Know About
Summary
Key Terms
Activities
Review Questions
Critical Thinking Questions
Chapter 14: Some Other (Important) Statistical Stuff You Should Know About
Sophisticated Group Comparisons
Sophisticated Correlational Analyses
It's Not about What Data is Mine, it's about What Data is Mined
Using Chatbots for Statistical Analyses
Summary
Key Terms
Appendices: Information Never Ends!
Appendix A: SPSS Statistics in Less Than 30 Minutes
Appendix B: Tables
Appendix C: Data Sets
Appendix D: Answers to Practice Questions
Appendix E: Math: Just the Basics
Appendix F: The 10 Commandments of Data Collection
Appendix G: The Reward
Glossary
Appendix D: Answers to Practice Questions
Appendix E: Math: Just the Basics
Appendix F: The 10 Commandments of Data Collection
Appendix G: The Reward
Glossary
Appendix D: Answers to Practice Questions
Appendix E: Math: Just the Basics
Appendix F: The 10 Commandments of Data Collection
Appendix G: The Reward
Glossary

About the author

Neil J. Salkind received his PhD in human development from the University of Maryland, and after teaching for 35 years at the University of Kansas, he was Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychology and Research in Education, where he collaborated with colleagues and work with students. His early interests were in the area of children’s cognitive development, and after research in the areas of cognitive style and (what was then known as) hyperactivity, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of North Carolina’s Bush Center for Child and Family Policy. His work then changed direction to focus on child and family policy, specifically the impact of alternative forms of public support on various child and family outcomes. He delivered more than 150 professional papers and presentations; written more than 100 trade and textbooks; and is the author of Statistics for People Who (Think They) Hate Statistics (SAGE), Theories of Human Development (SAGE), and Exploring Research (Prentice Hall). He has edited several encyclopedias, including the Encyclopedia of Human Development, the Encyclopedia of Measurement and Statistics, and the Encyclopedia of Research Design. He was editor of Child Development Abstracts and Bibliography for 13 years. He lived in Lawrence, Kansas, where he liked to read, swim with the River City Sharks, work as the proprietor and sole employee of big boy press, bake brownies (see www.statisticsforpeople.com for the recipe), and poke around old Volvos and old houses.

Bruce B. Frey, PhD, is an award-winning researcher, author, teacher, and professor of educational psychology at the University of Kansas. He is the editor of The SAGE Encyclopedia of Educational Research, Measurement and Evaluation and the SAGE Encyclopedia of Educational Design. In addition to being the lead author for The Statistics for People Who (Think They) Hate Statistics series, his books for SAGE include There’s a Stat for That!, Modern Classroom Assessment, and 100 Questions (and Answers) About Tests and Measurement. He also wrote Statistics Hacks for O’Reilly Media. In his spare time, Bruce leads a secret life as Professor Bubblegum, host of a YouTube channel and Echo Valley, a podcast that celebrates bubblegum pop music of the late 1960s. The show is wildly popular with the young people.

Product details

• Authors: Frey Bruce B., Neil J. Frey Salkind, Salkind Neil J.
• Publisher: Sage Publications Ltd
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Release: 19.08.2025
• EAN: 9781071855508
• ISBN: 978-1-0-7185550-8
• No. of pages: 400
• Subjects: Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Natural sciences (general); Social sciences, law, business > Media, communication > Communication science; SOCIAL SCIENCE / Statistics, Educational psychology, Psychological methodology, Social research and statistics, Research methods: general, For undergraduate education and equivalents, For graduate / post-graduate and equivalents, Textbook, coursework, introduction to statistics;social science statistics;SPSS