Table of Contents

Introduction: You Do Not Need to be a Statistician to Understand Statistics!
A Little Background
Many Students Don’t Know What They’re Getting Into
A Few Simple Steps
Summary
Do You Understand These Key Words and Phrases?
1. Identifying a Research Problem and Stating Hypotheses
Step 1: Identify a Problem That Can Be Investigated Using Inferential Statistics
Step 2: State a Hypothesis about the Problem You Are Investigating
Do You Understand These Key Words and Phrases?
Quiz Time!
2. Identifying the Independent and Dependent Variables in a Hypothesis
Step 3: Be Able to Identify the Independent Variable(s) and the Levels of the Independent Variable(s) in Your Hypothesis
Step 4: Be Able to Identify and Statistically Describe the Dependent Variable(s) in Your Hypothesis
Do You Understand These Key Words and Phrases?
Do You Understand These Formulas?
Quiz Time!
3. Measures of Dispersion and Measures of Relative Standing
Measures of Dispersion
Measures of Relative Standing
Summary of the Measures of Dispersion and Measures of Relative Standing
Do You Understand These Key Words and Phrases?
Do You Understand These Formulas?
Quiz Time!
4. Graphically Describing the Dependent Variable
Graphical Descriptive Statistics
The Normal Distribution
Do You Understand These Key Words and Phrases?
Quiz Time!
5. Choosing the Right Statistical Test
The Very Basics
How Are We Doing So Far?
Estimating Population Parameters Using Confidence Intervals
Predicting a Population Parameter Based on a Sample Statistic Using Confidence Intervals
Testing Hypotheses about a Population Parameter Based on a Sample Statistic
Testing a One-Tailed Hypothesis
Testing a One-Tailed "Less Than" Hypothesis
Summarizing What We Just Said
Be Careful When Changing Your Alpha Values
The Heart of Inferential Statistics
Probability Values
Step 5 Summary of Choosing the Right Statistical Test
Do You Understand These Formulas and Symbols?
Quiz Time!
6. The One-Sample t-Test
Welcome to the Guinness Breweries
The t Distribution
Let’s Look at a Directional Hypothesis
One More Time
Let’s Use the Six-Step Model
Summary of the One-Sample t-Test
Do You Understand These Key Words and Phrases?
Do You Know These Formulas?
Quiz Time!
7. The Independent-Sample t-Test
If We Have Samples from Two Independent Populations, How Do We Know If They Are Significantly Different from One Another?
Putting the Independent-Sample t-Test to Work
Summary of the Independent-Sample t-Test
Do You Understand These Key Words and Phrases?
Do You Understand These Formulas?
Quiz Time!
8. The Dependent-Sample t-Test
That’s Great, But How Do We Test Our Hypothesis?
Independence versus Dependence
Testing a Two-Tailed Hypothesis
Let’s Move Forward and Use Our Six-Step Model
The Case of the Unexcused Students
The Case of Never Saying Never
Summary of the Dependent Sample t-Test
Do You Understand These Key Words and Phrases?
Do You Understand These Formulas?
Quiz Time!
9. The Analysis of Variance
Understanding the ANOVA
The Different Types of ANOVAs
Assumptions of the ANOVA
Calculating the ANOVA
The Factorial ANOVA
Interpreting the Interaction p Value
Summary of the ANOVA
Do You Understand These Key Words and Phrases?
Do You Understand These Formulas?
Quiz Time!
10. The Chi-Square Tests
The One-Way Chi-Square Test
The Factorial Chi-Square Test (the Chi-Square Test of Independence)
Computing the Chi-Square Statistic
The Chi-Square Test of Independence
Computing Chi-square for the Test of Independence
Post-Hoc Tests Following the Chi-Square
Summary of the Chi-Square Tests
Do You Understand These Key Words and Phrases?
Do You Understand These Formulas?
Quiz Time!
11. The Correlational Procedures
Understanding the Idea of Correlations
Interpreting Pearson’s r
A Nonparametric Correlational Procedure
Linear Regression
Summary of the Correlational Procedures
Do You Understand These Key Words and Phrases?
Do You Understand These Formulas?
Quiz Time!
Conclusion. Have We Accomplished What We Set Out to Do?
Statistics in a New Light
A Limited Set of Statistical Techniques
The Use of Statistical Software Packages
A Straightforward Approach
Appendix A: Area Under the Normal Curve Table (Critical Values of z)
Appendix B. Critical Values of t
Appendix C. Critical Values of F When Alpha = .01
Appendix D. Critical Values of F When Alpha = .-05
Appendix E. Critical Values of Chi-Square
Appendix F. Critical Values of F When Alpha = .10
Appendix G. Selecting the Right Statistical Test
Glossary
Answers to Quiz Time

About the Author

Steven R. Terrell, Graduate School of Computer and Information Sciences, Nova Southeastern University, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA

Reviews

"Bravo to Terrell for creating an introduction to statistics that is friendly, conversational, and understandable. His focus on the most frequently used statistical analyses, vocabulary, and methods are absolutely what our students need. Terrell offers hundreds of authentic and timely research examples and case studies, leading readers through the research process in a supportive and interactive manner. I applaud the sections with key words, formulas to know, and self-quizzes. This is an excellent text for beginners in a quantitative research class or general introduction to research, such as our master's-level Introduction to Educational Research course. It is also useful for early-career academics writing their beginning journal articles, or for experienced faculty members to use as a terrific reference source." - Lynne Schrum, George Mason University, Virginia, USA "I applaud the author for linking statistical reasoning to a problem-oriented framework and for including a discussion of how to identify a researchable problem and frame research questions. These are serious omissions in many texts. The book is well situated to inform upper-level undergraduate and graduate students pursuing practitioner-related degrees. It does a good job of laying out a framework for inquiry and aligning statistical reasoning and tools with this framework. It is written for an audience who may do some basic statistical calculations and analysis, but who primarily will be consumers of statistics and quantitative research. I will recommend this text to colleagues who teach statistics or more general research methods courses for this audience." - Tammy Kolbe, University of Connecticut, USA