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Rating: 
Summary: The worst stats book for the social sciences
Review: I hate to be so critical, but I must agree with my colleague who described his/her harrowing experience with this textbook. I have two rules about learning statistics: no one is ever above a review of the most basic topics and an author/professor can never go wrong by providing a variety of examples within the same topic area.
Rating: 
Summary: A clear and comprehensive introductory statistics text
Review: I have been using this text for Levels 1, 2, and 3 social sciences statistics teaching in Britain and abroad for over 8 years now. Although I have tried using other introductory texts, I have yet to find a text as comprehensive and as clearly written as this.
Rating:
Summary: An outstanding introductory text in statistics.
Review: I'm not a literary reviewer or a writer, I'm just a third year Sociology student at the University of Windsor who is being forced to take a statistics course...and forced to use this text. It's bad enough that I have to take the course but, to go and dump on me, probably THE most difficult book in the world to read, is just too much. The definitions are uncomprehensible, the examples are useless and the explanations are so overly worded you can't even make out what the point is! On top of all that, the chapters aren't in any type of sensible order and as if all this wasn't enough....the darn thing costs well over $90 (for a book I will never use again!). In sum, the worst possible choice for a statistics course text and a complete waste of money!!!
Rating:
Summary: superbly-written and serious intorduction
Review: I've been using the 3rd edition for several years now, and I just think it's an extraordinarily clear, concise, and well-written book. Howell is better at presenting the basic statistical concepts (of ANOVA, for example) than any other author I've seen. Other introductory books (such as Runyon's "Fundamentals of Behavioral Statistics") may provide more advanced treatments or cover more material, but in general they end up being long-winded and unfocused. Howell's book is crisp. And in case you're wondering about the title, statistical methods for the behavioral sciences are not different than statistical methods in any other quantitative discipline. It's just that Howell draws his examples from psychology, sociology, etc., and may make mention of some of the conventions used by researchers in these fields.
Rating:
Summary: superbly-written and serious intorduction
Review: I've been using the 3rd edition for several years now, and I just think it's an extraordinarily clear, concise, and well-written book. Howell is better at presenting the basic statistical concepts (of ANOVA, for example) than any other author I've seen. Other introductory books (such as Runyon's "Fundamentals of Behavioral Statistics") may provide more advanced treatments or cover more material, but in general they end up being long-winded and unfocused. Howell's book is crisp. And in case you're wondering about the title, statistical methods for the behavioral sciences are not different than statistical methods in any other quantitative discipline. It's just that Howell draws his examples from psychology, sociology, etc., and may make mention of some of the conventions used by researchers in these fields.
Rating:
Summary: A rare jewel
Review: This may be the single best textbook I have ever used, or it may just seem that way because of the difficulty most stat textbooks have in explaining their concepts. Unfortunately, I only discovered it after two semesters of incoherent text books and bad teaching; it was only later, through his book, that I got the entire picture. Howell starts with the "why?" of statistical tests (necssary, but often not done), takes you through the equations relatively painlessly, and provides realistic commentary on actual uses, strengths and weaknesses, and controversies surrounding statistical techniques. I now tutor in statistics (really), and I just rely on Howell for the simplest and best method of explication. Now, if only he wrote an advanced text...
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