Starting Statistics
A Short, Clear Guide
- Neil Burdess - Deakin University, Australia
Statistics: A Simple Guide for Students is an accessible, humorous and easy introduction to statistics for social science students.
In this refreshing book, experienced author and academic Neil Burdess shows that statistics is not the result of some mysterious "black magic", but rather the result of some very basic arithmetic. Getting rid of confusing x's and y's, he shows that it's the intellectual questions that come before and after the calculations that are important: (i) What are the best statistics to use with your data? and (ii) What do the calculated statistics tell you?
Statistics: A Simple Guide for Students aims to help students make sense of the logic of statistics and to decide how best to use statistics to analyze their own data. What's more, it is not reliant on students having access to any particular kind of statistical software package.
This is a very useful book for any student in the social sciences doing a statistics course or needing to do statistics for themselves for the first time.
The book is organized in a manner that may confuse undergraduate students. For this level of courses, I prefer books which are organized according to the common research stages.
This is a useful test which explains concepts clearly with a variety of useful examples.
Excellent introductory text - paticularly enjoyed the introduction
good helpful overview text without being too technical
Very useful, user friendly introduction
This very readable book will form an excellent primer on Statistics to give those who are slightly hesitant or even afraid of the subject more confidence in dealing with the underlyng concepts and rationale. It covers the methods in straightforward, common-sense terms that our students will appreciate. It has come too late for our current course, but I will certainly let our students know about it and recommend students on next year's course to start reading through the book before the course starts.
