Understanding Statistics: An Introduction for the Social Sciences - Softcover

The book has a clear yet ambitious progression. It starts from basics such as what are means and modes, and spends some time dealing with basic concepts and notation; it ends up, however, by covering advanced topics such as loglinear modelling, multiple regression and structural equation modelling. In my opinion these topics are introduced in a gradual, gentle and accessible way.

While there are many books which attempt to introduce statistics to social scientists, there are few that do it as well as this one. It deserves to become a popular student text' - Stephen Newstead, University of Plymouth

`Daniel B Wright has written not just a well-constructed and thorough university-level textbook which "touched all bases", but also a complete social and behavioural science research "handbook" that graduate students and confirmed researchers will often be referring back to before going to specialized works or research articles' - Karl M van Meter, Founding Director of the Bulletin de Methodologie Sociologique and Member of the French CNRS (National Centre for Scientific Research)

`With pleasure I can say that this book gives a good and well-organized introduction to statistics and really serves as a starting point to learning specific techniques.' - Statistician

`There are numerous introductory statistics texts, but few are as readable as Daniel Wright's Understanding Statistics... This is an excellent introductory text suitable for students and researchers across the social sciences' - British Journal of Sociology

`This is an extremely good book. In one slim volume a truly staggering amount of material is covered, from the basics for undergraduate courses right through to advanced topics like MANOVA' - British Journal of Mathematical and Statistical Psychology

`[A] well written introduction to the statistics most often employed in the social sciences' - The American Statistician

The book is divided into four sections. Part One explains the theoretical relationship between statistics and research, outlining the place of statistics in the research process and introducing hypothesis testing. In Part Two the two t-tests are described in detail. This serves as a foundation for the rest of the book and develops skills that are called upon in later chapters. Part Three outlines the three main families of statistical tests - regression, analysis of variance, and two-variable tests. Finally, Part Four offers a guide to more advanced techniques.