Customer Reviews

Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences: A First Course for Students of Psychology and Education

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

When I had to take statistics as an undergraduate psychology student, I struggled to get through the course and was fortunate to get a "C". As a doctoral student in clinical psychology, I had to once again take statistics and I had nightmares of once again trying to get a passing grade. However, I am happy to say that I passed statistics and actually got an "A". I firmly believe it is due in large part to this textbook by Gravetter & Wallnau.

The tone of the textbook is relaxed and conversational. The authors definitely believe in keeping their explanations of sometimes complex statistical concepts as simple as possible. The book is filled with figures, step-by-step explanations of how to solve problems, and learning checks within each chapter to test your understanding of the material. After completing each chapter, I felt that I was more than prepared to tackle the problems at the end of each chapter.

If you have to take statistics, you might as well try to make the experience as pleasant as possible. And this book will definitely help you maintain your sanity, while actually teaching you about statistics.

OK, here it is: I am a math phobic, have been all my life, as long as I can remember myself! So, when I started studying psychology as a second degree, I was kind of anxious about taking all kinds of statistics courses: it seems that statistics are a major part of any psychology degree, & so it was important for me to learn them well, from the beginning. Well, with this book (which I shopped around for, looking for the best introductory book on the subject) my math-phobia has not disappeared, but is slowly & surely getting smaller & smaller. This is a textbook that guides you, step by step, so you can understand all the basic concepts of statistics, without feeling you're making an effort. Lots of problem-solving & learning checks help, lots of revision at the end of each chapter...the book is organized in an excellent & thoughtful way, perfect for a student who will take the time sto study (it covers almost everything) but who wants to do it in an organized way.

This is great book for learning statistics. The best I've seen so far. Statistics is a subject I hate, but this book has given me hope. I know use it as a supplement for other textbooks. It was a book that was written with the student in mind. I am in a class with an awful stats book now, Statistical Methods for Psychology. But, the Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences text will be a permanent fixture on my shelf and I recommend it often. I will continue to look for textbooks written by these guys. Thanks, you made one of my semesters much better.

I used an older copy of this book as an undergrad and was asked by a fellow doctoral student what I might recommend for use as a good stats book for the "stat phobic" ... Hands down, I say that THIS is the book to use. I've used thinner stats books that pretend to be cute. But if "cute" is not what you need, and you need to learn the stuff as well as reference the stuff. This is the book for you.

I suppose I ought to update my copy ;-) mine is dog eared!

Need stats? Buy this book to learn. Good stuff!

The book is clearly and concisely written. Examples are relevent to each concept covered, and concepts are carried through-out the book. One can easily understand the links, and underlying fundamentals, of statistical analysis. this is the only stat book I have ever read in which relationships are clearly and easily understood. (and I have read several stat books!)

Let me start off this review by saying that I will have two separate takes on this book. 1) The content of the book as created by the writers/publishers. 2) The digital format provided for Kindle users.

Lets start with number 1. I bought this book to use in my graduate stats class and I must say this book saved me from failing the course. I signed up to take an online course because I just didn't have the time to attend an on campus class. To make a long bad experience short, my professor did not really "teach" the course. He only contacted us with updates of when things were due and he posted very poor lecture material. Needless to say I did not learn much from his postings, a week into the course I had to make a judgement call. I decided not to waste my time watching his videos anymore and just rely on the book. I read all the chapters outlined in the syllabus in hopes of catching everything I needed to pass the exams. I knew I will be at a disadvantage because he used specific terms in his lectures that the book does not use. With only reading the book I was able to pass all my exams with B+'s, I credit not getting A's to me not understanding some of his terminology on the exams because the book used a different term. This book makes reading and comprehending the material very simple. It uses the repetition teaching method to get you to remember. The book authors are very good at repeating key points multiple times through out a chapter to ensure that you understand how one thing builds on the next. This is especially obvious in the ANOVA chapters, I tried listening to my professor's lectures on this topic and came away completely confused. I went back and read the chapters walking away wondering one thing: "why the heck did my professor have to make it so complicated?". It was extremely easy to understand in the book! If you are a self motivated learner, you will do very well with this book. The practice problems increase in difficulty so that you are not slapped in the face with a hard problem when you are just learning how to add. Great book! (5 stars for content)

Now on to number 2. I have an iPad so I decided to buy the Kindle version for two reasons: It was cheaper and delivery was instant. This was my biggest mistake. Using this text book in Kindle form was one of the most horrible experience I have ever had. For starters, there are NO page numbers. The pages are numbered by location # (which range from 1 to 18000......), I know it has to be done this way because the material is presented in a continuous flow and the Kindle software cannot tell if you are reading page 1 or half of page 1 or the end of page 1. However, here is the problem with this set up: sometimes the professor will say turn to page 34 and you will have no way of knowing where page 34 is. This goes a long way in getting you lost in the class. There is a highlight, notes, and bookmark system in the Kindle app, this is to simulate highlighting the the text book and cramping random papers in the book to mark an important page. Although the intentions were good, the implementation is lack-luster. There is a side bar that keeps track of all you highlights, notes, and bookmarks. After reading the first few chapters, I found my side bar drowning in highlights, notes, and bookmarks which ultimately made it a useless feature. Going through the side bar to find my highlights, notes, or bookmarks was so time consuming that it just slowed me down. Absolutely nothing like looking for that yellow post-it sticking out of your text book and jumping straight to it. The format for the material was also a problem. As you're reading the chapters, most of the time the material you are reading refer to a figure or table that is on the next page. This forces you to flip back and forth between multiple pages - which leads to another problem. Sometimes when you flip back and forth between pages, the material decides to rearrange itself so that the paragraph you were reading on the left side is now on the right side or even on the next page (what?!). There were times when I am reading a paragraph that just stops mid-sentence with the paragraph picking up on the next page. Again these things goes a long way in getting you lost. If you think all of this is bad, I was saving the best for last. Stats is basically a math class in words and in this math class there happens to be a lot of value tables that you need to reference to find your answer (F-table, Z-table, Q-Table, etc.). If you flip to the appendix of the book where these tables are suppose to be, you will be greeted with this message "Text not available due to copyright restrictions". With exception to the Unit Normal Table, there are not tables in the back of the book! You would think that Amazon would warn you of this BEFORE you spend $120 on a book. How are you suppose do your practice problems or exam if you don't have the holy grail of reference tables? Luckily I had Google to thank for saving my ass, I was able to find most of the tables through simple searches. Digital format or not, you should get 100% of the content or nothing at all. That's like selling you a story book and not including the ending. (1 star for digital form)

This is a great book but I highly recommend that you get the hard copy as appose to the digital format. However, if you must buy the digital format for some reason - save yourself some grief and read it on a computer as appose to an iPad or a Kindle.

Overall score: 1.2/5 stars

[A review of the 7th Edition, that came out in 2006.]

The text starts off easily. With the elementary definitions of mean, median, percentiles etc. Things you probably should have dealt with in high school. Likewise with its treatment of probability theory. Though the latter goes directly to the normal or Gaussian distribution.

But the meat of the book really starts in part 3, which is about inferences of means and mean differences. For you, as a student or researcher, what is important is not a definition of terms and distributions, but how to test hypotheses. From this flows such ideas as the t statistic and the analysis of variance (ANOVA). Part 4 builds on this, with nonparametric tests and regression analysis. The linear regression in one variable is simple. Then you get multiple regression with 2 variables. Tied in is the chi square test and various other tests.

The book also is a quick introduction to using SPSS as your basic statistical program. In your field, SPSS is likely to be the dominant such program, and you need an indepth acquaintance with it.

The book has some great examples and are easy to understand. My only problem is the typographical errors. They are way too numerous for the cost of the book. Somebody fire the editors and/or proofreaders that let these get by. They have taken a subject that many people are phobic about and struggle with and have made it more confusing by the mistakes that are in the book. Two errors in one problem... Somebody help me please! Professors, please pick a different book or at least read through the one you are selecting to make sure the editing was actually done!

We are using this book for a doctoral level differential and inferential statistics course. Of course many of us are uncertain about statistics courses anyway since most of us do not have math backgrounds. However, the book explains the reasoning and procedures clearly with good examples, practice and learning modules along the way. I bought the study guide by Gravetter as well.

I am about half way through this book and I actually understand, maybe even a bit excited about statistics. This book is definetly the best math/statisics textbook I have ever used. If you have hidden in fear from math but want to go to grad school, pick up a copy of this and you will not regret it.