Statistical Persuasion
How to Collect, Analyze, and Present Data...Accurately, Honestly, and Persuasively
- Robert W. Pearson - University of Pennsylvania, USA
Key Features
· Combines a concern for the design, collection, measurement, and the management of data with its analysis and presentation
· Provides examples and data concerning real world problems in education, crime, government performance, and other policy arenas
· Clearly demonstrates the steps used to generate the appropriate statistics and graphs in Excel and SPSS and then provides exercises to replicate and elaborate on these examples
This book and its supporting materials are ideally suited for graduate students in professional degree programs in public policy, education, social work, criminology, urban planning, and related schools as well as advanced undergraduates in these fields. The book's explanations, descriptions, illustrations, and step-by-step exercises create the skills and knowledge required of a policy analyst, advisor, consultant or the elected or appointed public official or nonprofit officer who wants to be better able to interpret and evaluate others' applied social research. Its data sets, solutions sets, instructors' manual, lecture slides, and student workbook provide instructors with a complete and fully integrated instructional package.
“I am very impressed with Statistical Persuasion, by Dr. Robert W. Pearson. The textbook includes the technical and mathematical knowledge students need to understand basic statistics, and it also includes an integration of these elements within the important framework of research design. The combination of the textbook and ancillary support materials is a complete package.”
"Statistical Persuasion will serve well those who are looking for a practical and pragmatic approach to using and interpreting statistics for applied purposes. This book would best serve as a text for a capstone course in statistics where the focus is on the presentation and consumption of statistical outcomes. It does an excellent job convincing the reader of the importance of designing a study tailored to the needs of a social science question so that the resulting findings can meaningfully answer the question."
I am using this text to enhance current lecture materials.
This is a good entry level statistics textbook for students with social sciences major. There are no hard math concepts but all of straight forward description to allow students to understand the basics of quantitative analytical approaches. The explanation of the SPSS (now named as PASW) is clear. Supplemental exercises are easy to follow. I don't think students will have anymore fear to math, statistics, and computer software after reading this book.
Readability, comprehensive, Online content, data sets, use of Excel and SPSS.
THe text is very well written and readable. However, I do not want to encourage my statistcs students to use Excel EVER, so I didn't recommend this book. It is a great book to those who may use Excel for data analysis.
Not assigned to teach course
A bit too advanced for my undergraduate stats class.
Level of text not appropriate for my students.
Pretty decent coverage of key statistical concepts
