Customer Reviews

Basic Statistics For Health Science

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Although three years have past since the third edition when this edition came out. there is very little difference in the fourth edition. There is a new second author but the first 7 chapters are virtually identical.
The biggest change appears to be the expansion of Chapter 8 from 6 sections to 16 with p-values introduced and explained in various contexts and type I and type II errors introduced one chapter earlier. The introduction of hypothesis testing along with estimation occurs in Chapter 8. This may be helpful to instructors if they tend to strictly follow the order in the text. Chapter 9 is somewhat shorter. These two chapters are now organized by one and two sample problems rather than by estimation and testing. It is not clear to me that this is a better way to organize and introduce the material.

In the end, the text is only 15 pages longer than the third edition and there are no new chapters. There seem to be fewer exercises overall.

Although there are noticeable differences in Chapters 8 an 9, there is very little difference in the other chapters. Most of the exercises are the same (with a few deleted from the new edition).

The authors claim to put more emphasis on the use of computers to solve problems. But this is not easily discernable. I only noticed some brief mention of SPSS version 9 in the ANOVA chapter.

The book I wrote with Robert Friis was intended for the same audience of students and includes a larger assortment of techniques including an introduction to bootstrap methods.

As a statistics tutor, I have had to spend countless hours explaining to students the content of this book due to its lack of ability to make concepts clear. This book assumes that the reader has a background in statistics and does not need detailed explanations. I have had to use my personal statistics book (Elementary Statistics by Mario F. Triola) to properly teach the students statistics. This book is frustrating to say the least.

The book is well organized from start to finish, and builds well on the topics as they are presented. Unfortunately, it often makes assumptions about the reader's knowledge of the topic, usually around formula usage that is confusing and difficult.

As a primer for statistics, this one falls a little short.

This book was a good idea but poorly executed. The authors slap some impressively technical definitions in the text without actually making an attempt to translate what the definitions mean. They provide numerous examples but instead of explaining the examples they add a formula underneath it without providing any real explanation of the formula. This leaves the student frustrated and painstakingly searching the internet for an explanation to the author's lack of explanation. This book is not worth the money they charge for it and will leave your students thinking that mastering the basics of statistics is impossible. This book does not provide a good foundation to act as a statistics book for beginners nor does it offer anything to those experienced with statistics.

There was a bit of damage more than expected, but that was reasonable.
Overall good condition, and quite prompt delivery

Item was in great condition... Fast shipping! This book was great, but I am not a Statistics person... LOL...

The book was used, but in good condition. The book got to me in plenty of time before my first class began. Thanks