Introduction to Applied Statistics for Psychology Students

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