Very clear explanations of the key concepts in statistics. This book has been around for a long time and there's a good reason for it.

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Product Description

Written in a personal and informal style, this book helps readers make the leap from apprehension to comprehension.  Statistics For The Terrified 4/e  teaches students how to use SPSS, one of the most widely used statistical software packages. This book successfully encourages readers grasp the meaning of basic statistical concepts and to solve statistical problems through a unique blend of humor, logic, and common sense. Examples problems are provided using SPSS for every key concept along with step-by-step assistance, without the need for lengthy theoretical discussions.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #58137 in Books
• Published on: 2006-09-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

From the Publisher
Kranzler and Moursund offer reluctant, math phobic statistics students a unique blend of humor and common sense in their brief introduction to statistics for the social sciences. Their objective is two-fold: (1) to give students an understanding of the concepts and computations of basic statistics, and (2) to train students to overcome math anxiety and avoidance responses that interfere with learning.

From the Back Cover
Statistics for the Terrified, 3/E, is a user-friendly introduction to elementary statistics, intended primarily for the reluctant, math anxious/avoidant person. Written in a personal and informal style, with healthy doses of humor and encouragement, the aim of the book is to help readers make the leap from apprehension to comprehension of elementary statistics. The book presents state-of-the-art, empirically supported self-help strategies (based on the cognitive behavioral techniques of rational emotive therapy) that help readers manage their math anxiety so they can relax and build confidence while still learning statistics. For those who need to learn statistics to further their career.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Statistics for the Terrified (3d ed.) is a user-friendly introduction to elementary statistics, intended primarily for the reluctant, math anxious/avoidant person. Written in a personal and informal style, the aim of this book is to help readers make the leap from apprehension to comprehension of elementary statistics. Statistics for the Terrified is intended as a supplemental text for courses in statistics and research methods; as a refresher for students who have already taken a statistics course; or as a primer for new students of elementary statistics. Millions of people have math anxiety—yet this is rarely taken into consideration in textbooks on statistics. This book presents state-of-the-art, empirically supported self-help strategies (based on the cognitive behavioral techniques of rational emotive therapy) that help people manage their math anxiety so they can relax and build confidence while learning statistics. Statistics for the Terrified makes statistics accessible to people first by helping them manage their emotions and then by presenting them with other essential material for learning statistics before jumping into statistics. After covering these prerequisites, the remainder of the book presents an introduction to elementary statistics in a personal and informal manner with a great deal of encouragement, step-by-step assistance, and numerous concrete examples, without lengthy theoretical discussions. ORGANIZATION

This book is divided into four sections. Section I—Essentials for Statistics—consists of three chapters. The first chapter introduces the text and presents effective strategies for studying statistics; the second discusses effective self-help strategies for overcoming math anxiety; and the third reviews basic math concepts. Section II—Describing Univariate Data—contains chapters on frequency distributions, descriptive statistics, the normal curve, and percentiles and standard scores. Section III—Correlation and Regression—consists of chapters on correlation coefficients and linear regression. Section IV—Inferential Statistics—contains four chapters on understanding inferential statistics, the t Test, analysis of variance (ANOVA), and chi square. The final chapter summarizes the text and congratulates the reader on a job well done. CHANGES FROM THE SECOND EDITION

The first change that readers of the first two editions will notice is the organization of the book. The third edition is organized into sections to clearly demarcate the different topic areas. The first section reflects the biggest change. Section I was created to directly address the needs of the audience for whom the book is primarily intended, prior to covering statistics. The first chapter consists of a revised introduction, along with the addition of effective strategies for studying statistics. Chapters 2 and 3, which address how to manage math anxiety and basic math review, were tucked away in the back of the second edition in the appendix. In addition to these changes, in Section II frequency distributions and graphing data are now covered before descriptive statistics. A new chapter on the normal curve was added. In Section III, the chapter on correlation coefficients now includes discussion of both the Pearson product-moment correlation and the Spearman correlation for ranked data. Although the order of the coverage of topics in statistics in the remaining chapters remained the same in this edition, almost every chapter was revised. Many of the advanced topics that were introduced in previous editions (e.g., multiple regression, partial regression, two-way ANOVA, and the Mann-Whitney U), but not discussed in detail due to space limitations, were eliminated to make room for more in-depth discussion of basic statistical concepts and techniques. New topics covered in this edition include levels of measurement, grouped frequency distributions, and strength of association, among others. Several new formulas were added, including Yates's correction for continuity for the one-way chi-square. A new "Formula Glossary" also was added to the appendix. Answers to problems were moved from the appendix to the end of each chapter to facilitate ease of checking answers. Finally, to lighten the content and make the book more entertaining to read, humorous cartoons on math and statistics topics were added throughout, as well as jokes or interesting quotes related to statistics.

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Customer Reviews

An Excellent Supplemental Text for Statistical Analysis at Any Level
For those of us with mathmatical weakness, an understandable work on basic statistical methods is a godsend. Having found myself in a graduate level econometrics course, Statistics For the Terrified is rarely out of reach. All too often statstics manuals, texts and instructors speak in tounges not always understood by the uninformed. However, Stats for the Terrified allows the reader to look up concepts and terminolgy and actually understand the explanations. The authors use few formulas to explain concepts, and when mathmatical equations are a necessity, the methods are explained in such a way that the Greek symbols and letters make sense. Indeed, regardless of field, Statistics for the Terrified is helpful in any work which requires statistical anaylysis.

Good enough to get by not great enough to use.
I have taught a basic statistics class at the college level nearly twenty times. Since the students who take the class range from the math major to the nursing and psychology majors, I have seen a great deal of math anxiety. However, I cannot say that I have ever seen a student terrified. Anxious, yes, terrified no. Therefore, when I cracked open this book, my presupposition was that the title is overstated for effect.
That opinion was not changed as I read through the book. It covers all of the topics one considers essential to basic statistics, and to do statistics, one must be able to handle mathematical formulas. The authors place a great deal of emphasis on the fact that mathematical formulas are abbreviations. This is essential to understanding them, as at times mathematics is a very compact language.
While there is a bit more light-heartedness in this book than in other statistics books, I really do not see where it will relax the severely anxious student. In the end, the greatest hurdle to being able to do statistics is realizing that it is a hurdle that can be leapt over. No amount of cutesy dialog or cartoons can substitute for clear explanations of what the symbols mean. Some of my non-traditional students have told me that they find barely relevant cartoons to be a distraction at best and an annoyance at worst. I have no plans to adopt this book as a textbook or ever recommend it for self-study. The explanations are too brief and there are not enough worked examples.

excellent book
I used this text in my undergraduate staistics course for my B.S. in Psychology. I was dreading the course because I barely made it out od high school math and that was 17 years ago! But the book got me through it. I actually got several books along with it that were basic in case I needed back-up perspective. I found them all hard to understand except this text. I founf is clear and step by step, just what I needed. This is a great text if you want to pick up basic stats and your atrrified.