Customer Reviews

Design and Analysis: A Researcher's Handbook (3rd Edition)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is probably the best experimental design and analysis text available out there. Unlike other texts (e.g., Winer et al.'s), it is writen as a book to be read rather than as a reference to be consulted sporadically. My graduate students all praise it for being just at the right level of intuitiveness-rigor. I suspect that it covers about 85-90% of the analysis issues that behavioral researchers face with respects to experimental data (e.g., from one-way ANOVAs to three-way mixed-design factorials, contrast analysis, elementary ANCOVA). For the rest (e.g., fractional designs, random-effects models), researchers should consult more technical (and less readable) texts such as Kirk's and Winer et al.'s. I only wished that the author would come up with a new edition--the current edition (the 3rd) was published in 1991--and that he would use a broader range of examples (e.g.,from social psychology as opposed to cognitive psychology only). Overall,however, it's a great reference.

This is absolutely one of the best statistical analysis reference books that I've ever seen. It's easy to read, easy to follow and doesn't skip the minor steps that people several years out of the academia environment tend for forget. I highly recommend this handbook for anyone that is wanting to do Real Work in Real Time.

The book itself is very helpful. It mostly focuses on the math behind the various statistical tests. I'd have liked if it spent more time talking about the theory behind what that math means. Still, if you're just looking for a book that explains what the different tests do and how to do them, then this book will get the job done. It uses a novel way of calculating ANOVAs though, using what it calls "bracket terms". This approach is pretty simple and time saving, but I think it makes the theoretical reasons for what you're doing less clear. The book also uses it's own set of terms, such as using "Y" to represent individual scores instead of the more common "x" (there's many more examples). If you've taken other stats classes before, this can be really confusing at first.

My big complaint is that my book was missing pages 278-324 out of the center of the book, obvious production error. I think that's a pretty serious lapse in quality control. I don't go through each book I buy looking for missing pages so I didn't realize the omission until chapter 13 suddenly became chapter 15 as I was reading it. Unfortunately, this was after the window for refunds had closed, so I'm stuck with a book missing an entire chapter and half of two others.

Check for missing sections!

I received the book I ordered in great condition and during the beginning of the expected time frame for arrival.

A book that does not attempt to make its subject interesting... this textbook is a thorough introduction to ANOVA and how to apply it in research. While extremely useful it was a dull read as well. If it were not required then I am not sure I would have picked it up. But considering the incompetence of my professor, this book has saved me.

I used this book in a graduate psychology stats course, and it was a very helpful resource throughout. This book is very text heavy, and is meant to read unlike some other books that may be used as-needed to look information up. The text is a little dry (it's stats, after all) but is easy to get through and understand. The examples were helpful to me in conjunction with my course material. This book might have been less helpful to me outside of a class setting, but I highly recommend it for use with a class or for someone looking for a book to read about statistics.

For all of you stats geeks in experimental psychology/behavioral neuroscience, this is a good book to get. It was suggested to me by my stats professor as the bible for experimental design. However, if you are not in this sub-sub-population, then this may not be your kind of book.

I saved a lot of money by ordering this online. It is very easy to understand and breaks the concepts down. I wish it had a workbook for more application and examples of the work.

If this book is required for your stats class, obviously you have to use it. However, if you have a choice about which book to purchase to learn about the statistical techniques of analysis of variance, I would avoid this book! I had to use this book for my graduate ANOVA class, and it pretty much reads like a novel about stats, with very few practical examples. It complicates the explanations much more than necessary and is difficult to follow. Also, it covers WAY too many concepts in each chapter, so it's very overwhelming. It does include answers to some problems in the back, which is helpful, but that is the extent of the helpfulness of this book.

I've read prior reviews of this text and seen the lack of approval, so I wanted to give it a better review, but after doing the reading and the exercises, I'm not particularly impressed. I've already seen the answer key in the back to be incorrect (possibly due to it being a new edition?) as well as a few formula problems (missing a square here or there). Although the explanations are decent, it can be difficult to backtrack to another problem two or three chapters prior and doing a post-hoc test on that data; albeit convenient for the author.