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Rating: 
Summary: The Best Introductory Text for Today's Students
Review: Jaccard and Becker's preface says it all:"Introductory statistics, unlike content areas in the behavioral sciences, does not become dated quickly. Many of the concepts taught ten years ago are still relevant today. So why another text? ....Most introductory statistics texts fail to integrate sufficiently the subject matter of statistics with what students will encounter in the behavioral science journals. A statistics course should not only teach students basic skills for analyzing data but also make them intelligent consumers of scientific information. ....Because of the way chapters and exercises are organized in most texts, students are essentially told which statistical procedure to use on a given set of data. This state of affairs is simply unrealistic. It is just as important to teach students when to use a particular statistic and why it should be used as it is to teach them how to compute and interpret the statistic. ....A common complaint among students is that statistics is irrelevant and boring. This view is fostered, in part, by the tendency of statistic texts to use examples and exercises that are irrelevant and boring. Yet, it is possible to provide interesting applications of statistics (which this text does successfully). ....In the present book, a unifying structure is provided [(1)in contrast with other texts and (2) in order to provide students with conceptual relationships among the various stastical analyses]. ....The book emphasizes a conceptual understanding of statistics [rather than the chosen outdated computational emphasis of the vast majority]. ....Another unique characteristic of this text is a chapter on research methods. ....Appendixes to several chapters explain in more detail certain advanced concepts referred to in the body of the text [for advanced students]. ....[The material covered is systematically thorough, allowing the professor to choose a customized curriculum and providing the student with a tremendous resource for further study and reference long after the course]." (pp. xiii-xvi) The book triumphs as the most relevant introductory text on the market today.
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Introduction
Review: The book is up-to-date and effectively presents the basic concepts. Deals with current power and sphericity concerns. Example SPSS-keyed analyses and APA-format results sections are especially valuable for research training. Uses post-hoc Tukey HSD test. Separate nonparametric chapters. The authors know their material (not always the case with statistics texts) and they provide a solid (higher-level) introduction. Good selection of topics and fairly thorough. Perhaps a bit wordy at times. One of the best available introductions. From a long-time teacher of statistics with no connection to authors.
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