Fundamental Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences
Product Description
David Howell’s practical approach focuses on the context of statistics in behavioral research, with an emphasis on looking before leaping; investigating the data before jumping into a test. This provides you with an understanding of the logic behind the statistics: why and how certain methods are used rather than just doing techniques by rote. Learn faster and understand more because Howell’s texts moves you beyond number crunching, allowing you to discover the meaning of statistical results and how they relate to the research questions being asked.
Fundamental Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences
theskeptic said,
Wrote on September 3, 2010 @ 4:50 pm
I’ve been using the 3rd edition for several years now, and I just think it’s an extraordinarily clear, concise, and well-written book. Howell is better at presenting the basic statistical concepts (of ANOVA, for example) than any other author I’ve seen.
Other introductory books (such as Runyon’s “Fundamentals of Behavioral Statistics”) may provide more advanced treatments or cover more material, but in general they end up being long-winded and unfocused. Howell’s book is crisp.
And in case you’re wondering about the title, statistical methods for the behavioral sciences are not different than statistical methods in any other quantitative discipline. It’s just that Howell draws his examples from psychology, sociology, etc., and may make mention of some of the conventions used by researchers in these fields.
Rating: 5 / 5
William Krause said,
Wrote on September 3, 2010 @ 4:59 pm
This may be the single best textbook I have ever used, or it may just seem that way because of the difficulty most stat textbooks have in explaining their concepts. Unfortunately, I only discovered it after two semesters of incoherent text books and bad teaching; it was only later, through his book, that I got the entire picture. Howell starts with the “why?” of statistical tests (necssary, but often not done), takes you through the equations relatively painlessly, and provides realistic commentary on actual uses, strengths and weaknesses, and controversies surrounding statistical techniques. I now tutor in statistics (really), and I just rely on Howell for the simplest and best method of explication. Now, if only he wrote an advanced text…
Rating: 5 / 5
Anonymous said,
Wrote on September 3, 2010 @ 7:20 pm
This text is the most clearly written and useful of four different introductory statistics texts that I have examined. Its emphasis on insight rather than rote learning of formulae makes the subject easily understood and retained.
This book is a “keeper”.
The author stresses the use of computers discusses several statistics programs available. He also thoughtfully provides exercise data for input to several a computer program. It is unfortunate, however, that he failed to mention the most powerful of these programs on the market today. I hope that he will examine this in future editions.
Rating: 5 / 5
Clive Lewis said,
Wrote on September 3, 2010 @ 8:39 pm
I have been using this text for Levels 1, 2, and 3 social sciences statistics teaching in Britain and abroad for over 8 years now. Although I have tried using other introductory texts, I have yet to find a text as comprehensive and as clearly written as this.
Rating: 5 / 5
John Burik said,
Wrote on September 3, 2010 @ 8:40 pm
Howell writes well and provides multiple examples but there is no justifiable reason for (a) multiple editions within a short time span (this is the THIRD in the course of my PhD), and (b) blatant errors (e.g. he states, this is the same result we saw in Table x and it isn’t). At this price I expect a product to be near perfect. I still have the 4th edition (published by Duxbury) and it would have served fine for my current course of advanced inferential stats. Fortunately the binding fell apart in the 5th edition and I was able to get my money back, saving me $100 on three purchases in five years of essentially the same book. As I said: Good, but no reason for new edition.
Rating: 3 / 5