Customer Reviews

Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences

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

 

 

The book is up-to-date and effectively presents the basic concepts. Deals with current power and sphericity concerns. Example SPSS-keyed analyses and APA-format results sections are especially valuable for research training. Uses post-hoc Tukey HSD test. Separate nonparametric chapters. The authors know their material (not always the case with statistics texts) and they provide a solid (higher-level) introduction. Good selection of topics and fairly thorough. Perhaps a bit wordy at times. One of the best available introductions. From a long-time teacher of statistics with no connection to authors.

This is an exceptional book. Another review says the book is not good with SPSS, which is strange because the book includes sections in all the main chapters that explains SPSS output. This book is great this way. The disgruntled student reviewer must have skipped these because they appear in special chapter boxes that (bad) students often skip over. The treatment of z scores (which is not all that crucial anyway - when was the last time you saw a z score in a research article) is outstanding, so the review just sounds like sour grapes to me.

This book explains statistics intuitively and gives great explanations and examples. It is written very clearly. After reading it, I was able to read and understand journal articles much better. It has special sections to tell you how statistics will be presented in research reports and how to read them. This is a great feature. This book helped me so much and I think it deserves seven stars!

Most likley a class will require the purchase of this book. Otherwise, avoid the book in favor of other choices. The book teaches in the form of text blocks and requires much of the homework questions in essentially essay/written form. Lack of visuals makes the book terrible for a visual learner. Even the professor would admit some of the reference tables are unessesarily detailed and confusing. However, the depth of explaination and the written answers will allow you to really get what's going on with the equations once you know what the heck you are doing in the first place...

Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences is exactly what I needed for college and was at an unbelievably great price. I will recommend Amazon to others looking to save money and receive books in a timely manner. Thanks, Rich S

the book arrived in great condition, it was exactally what i paid for :)

so yay for them...ioll be buying textbooks this way from now on ...sooooo much cheaper!

I received my book in a timely fashion. Unfortunately, I had to return it. I was satisfied with how fast the return credit card payment was to account. Thanks!

As a grad student who is at present using this textbook (I am in spring quarter, 06), I will sum it up in two words "it sucks". I have taken three different statistic classes and I am using their textbooks to fill in the many blanks this textbook has.
There are two major problems, one is that it does not have a connection with statistic software. My instructor assigns the problems in the chapter exercises to be performed on SPSS. This textbook is not geared for SPSS; it is set up for the problems to be worked the old fashioned way--paper and pencil, with a hand calculator to be used. It does not work well with SPSS, as my classmates and I have complained about to each other.
The other is that the authors seem to assume that students who have signed up for statistical classes love stats. Wrong ! ! ! Most students dread statistics class, they jokingly call it sadistic class. This is the only class that many of us feel totally stupid in (remember, we are GRADUATE level students, so we are not stupid). We need a textbook that explains everything in simple terms, gives many examples and then explains the steps in detail. The problems should be up-to-date, and able to be used in SPSS software.
The book does not adequately cover many topics, and the one subject that ever stats student hates to deal with is Z-scores. And as usual, this textbook hardly mentions it, four pages in one chapter discussing how to do z-scores. Yet it is one of the most important methods a stats student needs to know how to do. Several of my classmates feel that this book was a waste of their money.

For basic statistics in undergrad it may be adequate, or for those who are knowledgeable of statistics this may suffice; but for regular statistic class students, this textbook fails the class.