Introduction to Applied Statistics for Psychology Students

Reviewed by Pam Ansburg, Professor, Metropolitan State University of Denver on 2/15/24

Comprehensiveness rating: 3 see less

The book covers the main ideas that one would want to cover in the a beginning stats course for psychology majors, but the degree to which the topics are covered is quite shallow. Not that I am looking for more math or proofs, just more context and a slower more methodical lead in to the material. Students may get spooked without that gentle introduction.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

As far as I can tell all looks good here in terms of accuracy.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 3

The reliance on SPSS throughout may make the book fall out of fashion. Many are moving to free software packages such as Jamovi. The authors do justify their inclusion of SPSS in their introduction so I am not levelling a criticism here. Just a note that embedding examples that rely on using the wildly costly SPSS package for data analysis is likely limit the number of instructors who will be able to adopt the text.

Clarity rating: 2

This is where I really feel the textbook falls short. I had high hopes for the book because it has "applied" in the title. Instead of situating the introduction of statistical methods in rich applied contexts, the book really presents the statistical analyses in a bare bones manner. What is presented is clear, but it is not presented in an inviting tone and accessible context.

Consistency rating: 5

This book does clearly and consistently use statistical symbols throughout.

Modularity rating: 4

Of course, statistics does require a cumulative understanding of some early concepts that can be applied to more advanced concepts; but beyond that characteristic of the topic, it is easy to see how an instructor could select to cover certain sections and/or rearrange the presentation of content.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

The order in which topics are presented aligns with a traditional textbook structure.. The order of topics makes sense. The one section I might consider reordering is to move the discussion of percentiles and quartiles to the section on frequency. But, I can see why the author placed that section where they did.

Interface rating: 4

The book seemed to work well overall. However, there is some commentary located as footnotes on some pages. These comments often humanize the author and are inviting /comforting notes to students. By placing them as footnotes, they seem to be just stuck at the bottom of the page as if they are not to be integrated with the main text. I think those comments are terrific and would like to see more of them and to seem them highlighted throughout.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

The book is well, but sparsely, written. Again, for a book with the word "applied" in the title, I would have liked to have heard more of the authors' voice, like we do in the aforementioned commentaries.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

I did not notice any offensive or insensitive examples. However, some may find the reliance on using a binary gender construct as the basis for tests that compare two groups (e.g., Unpaired Z- tests) as inconsistent with inclusive teaching.

Comments

Kudos to the author for writing a clear and concise text; but, in a class like statistics which often engenders fear in the heart of psychology majors, there needs to be many more applied examples and a warmer handoff to the statistical formulae.

Reviewed by Mike Love, Instructor, Lewis-Clark State College on 5/18/22

Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less

This text provides surface-level overview of many concepts in statistics and probability.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

I did not notice any significant errors in the presentation of formulas or definitions. Any variance I noticed could be easily dismissed as a difference in preferred notation or terminology.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 4

There is nothing wrong with the examples used, however, I would like t see more examples beyond abstract lists of numbers. Providing more word/application problems would be useful, particularly for independent learners.

Course mentions its intended use with specifically numbered psychology courses at author's institution (i.e. PSY 233/234). Would prefer a more generalized description of courses this is targeted to.

Clarity rating: 4

The online version of the text has some formatting issues that make figures unclear. Some times, multi-line examples have "broken" alignment that makes their illustrative intent unclear.

For example, in 3.1.2: Median, if your viewing window is too small, the arrows pointing to relevant values can be horribly misaligned.

In 1.1.2 Intro to Univariate Statistics, the graphics used do not scale well with different zoom levels.

Consistency rating: 4

The author seems to try and inject some humor into establishing some computational ideas, but that is difficult to express in a format like this. I sometimes felt the attempts at humor came across as judgmental or dismissive.

Modularity rating: 5

The author has recommended modules based on course intent, but each section seems largely independent of the others, and can be used in different orders, based on need and curriculum preference.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

The organization is not the way I would have structured the text, but it is organized in a way that makes intuitive sense. The modularity of the text allows nicely for content to be re-arranged and re-organized.

Interface rating: 5

Links back to definitions and formulas make it easy to look back and check what symbols mean. Navigating through and across sections is very easy.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

No grammatical mistakes or vague wording that I noticed.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

I did not notice any potentially insensitive or offensive content or presentation.

Comments

I do not feel the material goes quite deep enough for STEM students or for curious Psychology students, but also manages to not quite focus enough on meaning and application for students to build an intuitive understanding of what the measurements mean and how they can be used.

A good start for a statistics class, but faculty would need to supplement with more detailed examples and exercises.

Not particularly useful for an independent learner outside of a motivated STEM student