Comprehending Behavioral Statistics (with CD) [Hardcover]

Russell T. Hurlburt (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0534601022 | ISBN-13: 978-0534601027 | Publication Date: August 8, 2002 | Edition: 3

Hurlburt's text offers an innovative approach to teaching and understanding statistics. Many students consider statistics their most intimidating subject, but Hurlburt uses a variety of learner-friendly approaches to help students to think clearly and confidently about statistical concepts. Students find his writing style inviting and clear; faculty find it exceptionally accurate and up to date. He provides a complete set of interactive audio/visual lectures (called "lectlets") to engage students who find that hearing enhances their comprehension. Hurlburt deftly employs repetition and a progressive, cumulative integration of concepts, so students build upon what they learn as they progress through the course. Hurlburt's unique "eyeball-estimation techniques," which garnered high praise in previous editions, helps students gain experience in making educated guesses! New to this edition, COMPREHENDING BEHAVIORAL STATISTICS, THIRD EDTION, includes a FREE Personal Trainer CD--This hands-on CD contains 43 interactive audio/visual lectures (called "lectlets") covering all the concepts in the text. Students use the lectlets to prepare for class, to clarify concepts they didn't understand in class, to substitute for a missed class, and to review for exams. The FREE Personal Trainer also includes ESTAT, Hurlburt's unique eyeball-estimation software, which enables students to make an educated guess about the magnitude of a statistic without the use of a calculator or statistical tables. ESTAT includes datagen, the easiest-to-use statistical computational software. The Personal Trainer CD also includes interactive electronic review and multiple choice quizzes. The Personal Trainer CD is a dynamic and useful "after-class tutor" for any student struggling with statistics.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Russell T. Hurlburt, Ph.D. has been at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas since 1976. Prior to arriving at UNLV, he completed a clinical psychology internship at Connecticut's Newtown State Hospital. He received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of South Dakota after a B.S. in engineering from Princeton. Hurlburt's areas of interest include the teaching of introductory statistics: Dr. Hurlburt has developed "eyeball estimation" techniques for comprehending the concepts of statistics, and he's incorporated them into his textbooks and computer-aided instructional programs. His clinical psychology and engineering backgrounds make him ideally situated to write about introductory statistics with accuracy and sensitivity. Dr. Hurlburt is also one of the pioneers of "thought sampling," the use of beepers to trigger the random sampling of thoughts and feelings in participants' own natural environments. He is the originator of the "descriptive experience sampling method," which provides qualitative, idiographic descriptions of inner experience.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 624 pages
• Publisher: Wadsworth Publishing; 3 edition (August 8, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0534601022
• ISBN-13: 978-0534601027
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 8.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,164,909 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great use of graphing... would teach with it again., January 3, 2009

By 

Anne T. Gilman (Schenectady, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Comprehending Behavioral Statistics (with CD-ROM) (Hardcover)

This book is both comprehensive and realistic (e.g. the author recognizes that introductory students can handle interval and ratio data similarly). I have taught one semester of intro stats using this textbook. I'll need several more semesters before I truly feel comfortable teaching it, but I can give a preliminary report on the book:

Best part: The eyeballing techniques. The formulas behind behavioral statistics are far from simple, but the distinctions they make are related to quantitative analyses (visual and otherwise) which the students already know how to perform. Can you balance a flat ruler on a pencil? Can you tell Pigpen from Charlie Brown? If so, you can see in the data some of the distinctions that we make with measures of central tendency (like averages) and of variation.

2nd best part: The audio CD. As another reviewer suggested, it's not slick, it won't make any radio charts, okay, but it's the author putting each of the core concepts in perspective. Hurlburt is a good writer, even with the rough spots I note below, and his prose looks daunting to some introductory-level students. I don't know if more than a few of my students tried the CD, but it definitely helped a few of them get more out of the book.

Rough patches: The Student's t distribution is snuck in somewhat abruptly, in comparison to other explanations. There are also a few paragraphs in the ANOVA chapter which many of my students found indigestible, and with reason. And likely no one else will care, but some of the data sets presented say precisely whether they are simulated or actual data -- why don't they all?

More good stuff: The author does not think that everyone on earth longs to be a statistician. (Another intro textbook I considered bases its entire discussion of ANOVA on degrees of freedom, which is no doubt mathematically sound, but I had to laugh, since so many of us in the graduate program were still stumbling on that concept! Group means are a little more broadly understood.) In this book, it takes a second to figure out the answer index, but after that you're fine, and the exercises offered follow the lessons well.

If the publisher would produce power points with the graphs from the book and give the author some time and maybe 5 more pages to improve the occasional rough patches, this text would be more useful and probably more widely used.

5.0 out of 5 stars Fast and great to work with, September 11, 2011

By 

Austin Sara - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Comprehending Behavioral Statistics (with CD-ROM) (Hardcover)

Book came quickly. When I needed the forgotten CD, they worked fast to remedy and CD arrived within 3 days.
No problems. Would use them again.

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Introduction to Behavioral Statistics, March 11, 2006

By 

naiaspirit "naiaspirit" (Missoula,, MT United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Comprehending Behavioral Statistics (with CD-ROM) (Hardcover)

I was truly fearful of statistics but I think this book saved me. I thought the textbook was readable, had excellent examples, the terms were clear and the text is written in an applied way. The people who rated this text harshly would not have been pleased with any stats text,after all it is stats...what math is not dry. HELLOOOO!?