Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences (Hardcover)

by Michael Thorne (Author), Martin Giesen (Author), Michael Thorne (Author), Martin Giesen (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
This introductory statistics text presents a range of topics, from simple to sophisticated, in clear, logical language with relevant research examples that motivates students so they always understand why they are learning the material and its relationship to their further work in the field.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 464 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages; 4 edition (July 9, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0072832517
• ISBN-13: 978-0072832518
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #198,774 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars A well written book on Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences ~JC Angelcraft, May 12, 2007

By	JC Angelcraft (California) - See all my reviews

Need to learn the basics of statistics? B Michael Thorne and J Martin Giesen's book is a very well written, fundamentally sound textbook that will give the reader a well-structured taste how statistics are applied to the behavioral sciences.

The book expounds well on the language of statistics. Chapters 2-6 are dedicated to Discriptive Statistics wherein the student will learn the basics of scaling, frequency distribution, and graphing of data. Following are appropriately placed and well written lessons on Measures of Central Tendency, Measures of Dispersion finishing with the functions and dynamics of Standard Scores.

Generally speaking, the book systematically advances some very neat step-by-step lessons involving statistical formulas for finding the variance et al. It teaches the student the importance of graphs and helps them to develop a deep appreciation for the various kinds of graphs available to express ones data.

The intent of the authors seems to be an effort to delivers a text where every chapter builds perfectly on the next. The student may find himself or herself submerged in learning about the measures of the central tendency and before they know it, they will be calculating t scores, the average deviation, the standard deviation and the variances for given data.

This book also teaches about the importance of the power of a statistical test while helping the student to appreciate the difference between a parametric from a non-parametric test and coaches the student of which test to use when.

This book offers fine systematic lessons in appreciating such tests as one and two-way ANOVA design and makes correlation and regression principles easy to understand.

The book also offers nice easy to comprehend tutorials in Chi-Square goodness to fitness test as well as the Chi square test of independence. The text concludes with a solid lesson in alternatives to the t and F tests and features manageable lessons for the Mann-Whitney U Test, The Wilcoxon Matched-Pairs Signed- Ranks Test, and the Kruskal-Wallice-One-Way ANOVA.

The appendix is loaded with a nice review of the formulas for quick reference and glossary definitions that make understanding statistical symbols an easy and pleasant task. It is adequately furnished as well with statistical tables, albeit limited, for locating areas in a z score, and for finding critical values for t, f, q, r, x2 et al. given of course the degrees of freedom.

B Michael Thorne and J Martin Giesen's book on statistics for the behavioral sciences was such a fine and well organize book that it gave me confidence and today I look forward to the day when I will test my own Null Hypothesis.

5.0 out of 5 stars Narrative statistics, October 14, 2005

By	Avantel (Lostland) - See all my reviews

I read the whole 3rd edition of this book and I did not have many complains, other than the chapter on 2 way ANOVA was too brief. I tried to look inside this book, but such info is not available here at this moment. At least I know the former edition was really good. Everything else than 2 way ANOVA was explained in narrative ways that definitively help to understand this topics much better than so many other book filled of junk equations. However, I'm not so sure if you should use this book if you're currently taking a statistic related course because you may need immediate answers, just equations and repetitive solutions. The proper and deeper knowledge that will be useful in real life when doing research takes much longer time to learn and you shold take it at some time later on. I am not a psychology major, but a chemistry one and the book is just as helpful to me as to the aimed audience, it's math after all, 1 + 1 is 2 no matter which one is your major.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Seller, April 11, 2008

By	Hilary M Repass (Hickory, NC) - See all my reviews

Thank you so much for getting me the book in such a timely matter I really appreciate it, also it is in great condition.