Statistics for People Who (Think They) Hate Statistics

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.

Part I. Yippee! I′m in Statistics
Chapter 1. Statistics or Sadistics?: It′s Up to You
Part II. Sigma Freud and Descriptive Statistics
Chapter 2. Computing and Understanding Averages: Means to an End
Chapter 3. Vive la Difference: Understanding Variability
Chapter 4. A Picture Really Is Worth a Thousand Words
Chapter 5. Ice Cream and Crime: Computing Correlation Coefficients
Chapter 6. Just the Truth: An Introduction to Understanding Reliability and Validity
Part III. Taking Chances for Fun and Profit:
Chapter 7. Hypotheticals and You: Testing Your Questions
Chapter 8. Are Your Curves Normal?: Probability and Why It Counts
Part IV. Significantly Different: Using Inferential Statistics
Chapter 9. Significantly Significant: What It Means for You and Me
Chapter 10. Only the Lonely: The One Sample Z Test
Chapter 11. T(ea) for Two: Tests Between the Means of Different Groups
Chapter 12. T(ea) for Two (Again): Tests Between the Means of Related Groups
Chapter 13. Two Groups Too Many?: Try Analysis of Variance
Chapter 14. Two Too Many Factors: Factorial Analysis of Variance: A Brief Introduction
Chapter 15. Cousins or Just Good Friends?: Testing Relationships Using the Correlation Coefficient
Chapter 16. Predicting Who′ll Win the Super Bowl: Using Linear Regression
Chapter 17. What to Do When You′re Not Normal: Chi-Square and Some Other Nonparametric Tests
Chapter 18. Some Other (Important) Statistical Procedures You Should Know About
Chapter 19. A Statistical Software Sampler
Part V. Ten Things You′ll Want to Know and Remember
Chapter 20. The Ten (or More) Best (and Most Fun) Internet Sites for Statistics Stuff
Chapter 21. The Ten Commandments of Data Collection
Appendix A. Excel-erate Your Learning: All You Need to Know About Excel
Appendix B. Tables
Appendix C. Data Sets
Appendix D. Answers to End of Chapter Questions
Appendix E. The Reward: The Brownie Recipe