Customer Reviews

Elementary Statistics: Picturing the World (4th Edition)

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

After having used Mario Triola's Essentials of Statistics to teach my prior two classes, this semester at a new college I had the opportunity to adapt Larson & Farber in an elementary statistics course for the first time. As has become the trend lately, we have been using Pearson's accompanying Course Compass web-based program for enhancing the class activities, for example the students submit all their homework online, access tutorials, animations, video clips, and the entire collection of the textbook pages in an electronic format. The topics in Larson & Farber proceed very much along the other comparable standard books such as Triola and Moore, starting out with descriptive statistics, then covering probability and distributions (binomial, normal, Poisson), and finally moving to inferential statistics in the form of building confidence intervals, hypothesis testing (for means, proportions, variances), and linear correlation/regression. There is also another chapter covering Chi-square goodness of fit/independence, and the basics of ANOVA using the F-distribution. Larson & Farber then finish with the 11th chapter on nonparametric methods meanwhile including extra information within exercises and marginal notes, providing a plethora of interesting reading which serve to enhance the knowledge base of the readers. I have been able to cover most of the material in the first 10 chapters within a single academic semester and the majority of the twenty-something students have been keeping along and showing interest in the subject.

The students and I have kept handy our TI 83/84 calculators for many of the exercises; in a couple of places however, MINITAB is the program of choice. For example when building prediction intervals or performing multiple regression, since the TI calculators do not come equipped with a built-in program to perform such operations. The latest 4th edition contains some maiden features in the form of newly included chapter summaries, applet activities, discussions on uses and abuses of statistical techniques, cumulative reviews at the end of selected chapters, technology answers, and revised course coverage in certain chapters (for example in chapter 2, clusters and gaps were added to the measures of central tendency, and in chapter 7, the power of a test has been defined.) The authors have noted they have aimed to strike a balance between computations, decision making, and conceptual understanding, at the same time continuing to incorporate the graphical display of data throughout the text. Also the book adheres to the MAA, AMATYC, and NCTM standards which call for a student-friendly text emphasizing the applications of statistics. Additionally, there are student resources available which for example include chapter quiz prep videos on a CD-ROM, student solutions manual, and technology manual. In summary, Larson & Farber have put together an excellent resource for learning and teaching statistics which promises to have an impact both in the classroom and the academic markets in the future to come.

I was assigned this book for teaching my 100-level college intro-stats course. It is much better organized than the previous book I used, but it isn't as thorough. Some topics, such as calculating a median and other percentiles using depth on an ordered list, are simply omitted in this book.

It seems that some topics are omitted or glossed over because they might be too complex for "Elementary" statistics. On the other hand, the more complex topics in the book, such as hypothesis testing -- a topic that students consistently have a hard time understanding -- are not covered in enough depth.

Our students are sold this book in a package with videos on CD, a study guide, and a couple other things. This package is, in my opinion, worthless to a student in a class. They may be valuable to someone teaching themselves, or to a student in an online class, but for a live class, I think they are a waste of money.

The CD videos show a teacher working through the topics and some of the problems in the book. However, the teacher seems to have, (hands flail) y'know, a highly repetitive, (hands flail) y'know, (hands flail) vocabulary (hands flail), and it's (hands flail) y'know (hands flail) really hard to (hands flail) y'know, watch him (hands flail) y'know, teach. Like his hands have a nervous tic or something. I'm sure I have my own quirks in class, but this guy... his hands are something else.

All in all, I think the book is pretty good, with solid examples, well-highlighted definitions and key points. The chapter exercises are good in that they start VERY easy and progress through up to reasonably difficult, while staying within the limits of the text.

I told my department head: I like the book, but I recommend it without the bonus materials (and associated costs!).

It's too soon for me to rate the book itself; however, I have major issues with the CD. My OS is Windows 7, and the CD only operates with Windows ME, or XP (SP2), and Macintosh OS 10.x. I have contacted tech support, as well as the publisher, a number of times, but it seems that they do not have an updated version or a patch available. I have been bounced back and forth between customer service and technical support and still have not had this problem resolved. The publisher, Pearson/Prentice Hall, has not been the least bit helpful, and it is extremely frustrating to not be able to gain access to a resource that I paid for.

I was required to purchase this book for a winter session, online statistics course, and with just a little mental elbow grease and use of Pearson's "My MathLab" web site, (also required for the course), I found a daunting class to be surprisingly manageable and even easy at times! I only gave 4 stars because there was a separate fee of $78 for the website, but other schools may pay that fee. Overall an interesting text book.

I felt the book was terrible. It didn't explain things well at all. I was lost from the start. Learned more from the web. Don't waste your money on this one!

This book gives you the tools to do well in elementary statistics. Examples are clear & easy to follow with thorough explanations, and not too wordy like some math books. I'm not all that interested in math but I thought stats was ~kinda~ fun. All the problems come from real life data.

This book has so much flashy color, and little pictures of happy students that you can't read the text. You can say the same about most modern American textbooks, but this one is truly exceptional.

Made in an easy to understand format, little content difference between editions, so it's a good way to save money.

Book is comprehensive and gives good examples to learn the problems. Very good cd in back of book to help also. Came in good time and in excellent shape. Helpful to refer to Minitab, TI-83 and Excel and show entry possibilities. That is a very helpful thing. Lots of color setting different sections apart which was very helpful. Great book all around.

It is in excellent condition and came with a formula sheet and a CD. It took about 6 days to arrive.