Making Sense of Statistics provides a thorough, but accessible, introduction to statistics and probability, without the distractions of mathematics. The book does not require you to use any algebraic formulae or equations, but it does explain how and why methods work, and exactly what answers mean. Guidance is provided on how to design investigations, analyze data and interpret results. There are exercises and case studies from a variety of areas of application, and an accompanying website from which interactive spreadsheet models and data files can be downloaded.

The book is ideal for a broad readership, its coverage being more comprehensive than many conventional introductions
Has an accompanying website from which interactive material can be downloaded
The content is succinct and clearly explained, without unnecessary details
Each chapter is selfcontained, to enable the reader to focus on one topic at a time

Autorentext

Michael Wood

Klappentext

Making Sense of Statistics provides a thorough, but accessible, introduction to statistics and probability, without the distractions of mathematics. The book does not require you to use any algebraic formulae or equations, but it does explain how and why methods work, and exactly what answers mean. Guidance is provided on how to design investigations, analyze data and interpret results. There are exercises and case studies from a variety of areas of application, and an accompanying website from which interactive spreadsheet models and data files can be downloaded.

Zusammenfassung
Making Sense of Statistics provides a thorough, but accessible, introduction to statistics and probability, without the distractions of mathematics. The book does not require you to use any algebraic formulae or equations, but it does explain how and why methods work, and exactly what answers mean. Guidance is provided on how to design investigations, analyze data and interpret results. There are exercises and case studies from a variety of areas of application, and an accompanying website from which interactive spreadsheet models and data files can be downloaded.

Inhalt
Introduction: Statistics, Non-mathematical Methods and How to Use this Book.- Probability, Samples, Buckets and Balls.- Summing Things Up: Graphs, Averages, Standard Deviations, Correlations and so on.- Why Use Statistics? Pros, Cons and Alternatives.- Calculating Probabilities: Mental Ball Crunching and Computer Games.- Possible Worlds and Actual Worlds: How Can We Decide What's True?.- How Big is the Error? Confidence Intervals.- Checking if Anything is Going On: Tests of Null Hypotheses.- Predicting the Unpredictable, or Explaining the Inexplicable: Regression Models.- How to Do It and What Does It Mean? The Design and Interpretation of Investigations.- Appendix A: Using Spreadsheets (Excel) for Statistics.- Appendix B: A Brief Guide to the Statistical Package, SPSS.- Appendix C: Data and Program Files for Downloading.- Appendix D: Comments on Some of the Exercises.- Notes.- References.- Index.