Introduction to Quantitative Statistical Analyses

This textbook is written for introductory statistics courses that concentrate on the procedures found most often in experimental and correlational studies. Its structure follows the method used by Keppel and his colleagues, and it introduces the statistical tests that students are most likely to meet in published research. Students learn to run the calculations by hand, which builds understanding of how each operation works, and they also learn to use statistical software such as SPSS, a skill they will need for later work. The two approaches are presented side by side.

The book also examines the weaknesses of the null-hypothesis method, which has long shaped how psychology experiments are analyzed. In its place, it presents ways to estimate effect size and statistical power, and it presents confidence intervals as a clearer way to assess the difference between two means. Throughout, the authors include analytical comparisons that show how to extract as much information as possible from a dataset.

The text gives a readable and representative overview of the statistical methods commonly reported in journal articles. It is aimed at students preparing for advanced psychology courses and other social science classes that assign readings with complex statistical content.

William P. Wallace holds a Ph.D. from Northwestern University and is a professor in the Psychology Department at the University of Nevada, Reno. He has taught undergraduate and graduate statistics for more than thirty years, and most of his published articles concern experimental research on human memory. Jill A. Yamashita earned her Ph.D. at the University of Nevada, Reno, and is an assistant professor at California State University, Monterey Bay. A cognitive psychologist, she has published research on false memory and on face perception, and she has taught an advanced statistics course for several years.