Customer Reviews

A Step-by-Step Approach to Using the SAS System for Univariate and Multivariate Statistics

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You do not need to be a social scientist nor use SAS to find this book helpful. I am not a social scientist, and often use other statistical software. Still, I use this guide more than any of my other statistical textbooks and reference books. The authors do an excellent job of explaining how to perform and interpret a variety of statistical tests. For SAS users, there are many example programs and instructions on how to write and interpret these. If you regularly use statistics in your schooling or career, this book is a must have!

This book is my favorite reference for understanding how to run and interpret statistical analyses. I used it when I was working on my dissertation and doing multiple regression for the analyses, and it was a godsend. Just as the title states, you are given step-by-step instructions on how to do the analyses and interpret them. What I think is particularly good about this book is that the authors don't overwhelm you with a lot of equations, formulas, and math.

The book was targetted to social scientists. The reviewer is from physical sciences. Thus this review may be biased.
Either the authors tried not to confuse novices in statistics with too much theory/math, or they assumed the readers are fluent with statistics but are tyros in SAS. The book included as little formula and derivations as possible. I find it is hard to understand what is really going on and why the procedures do things in those ways. It reminds me certain cook books. If you are desperately 'hungry', this might be a good one for you. However, if you want to be a chef, look somewhere else.
I am not sure how social scientists will feel about this book. As a statistician, I think this is definitely NOT a book for those who are comfortable with mathematical derivations, i.e. most mathematicians, statisticians and physicists.