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Statistics: Unlocking the Power of Data
This title incorporates the use of available technologies and modern methods of data analysis. It focuses on providing conceptual understanding of the main themes of statistical inference, to provide a solid grasp of the core ideas and make it easier to apply those ideas to more theoretical and advanced statistics topics.
736 pages, Hardcover
First published October 8, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 31, 2019
As best I can remember, I’ve only ever withdrawn from one class during my undergraduate education. About a dozen years ago I dropped a statistics class I was taking in hopes of applying to grad school. My dad was terminally ill. I sat through class the first week or so and not once could I focus. My heart was not in it.
Four months ago, I spotted a grad program that excited me in the graduate catalogue. I’ve since abandoned that ambition in no small part because the university canned the program. I have no idea what prerequisites I may have needed but to test the waters, to see if I was up for more schoolin’, I decided to pick up a few classes at the local community college. Statistics was one of those classes in some measure because I wanted to prove that I could have finished it the first time had I the mind to do so. Statistics: Unlocking the Power of Data by five different people with the surname Lock was the course textbook.
Since I last took college coursework, more of the course materials have moved online. Since I last took college coursework, textbook publishers do not seem to have improved much in producing online course materials. Asked to score the text book alone, I might rate it somewhere between 3 and 4 stars out of five. Asked to score the online course materials, 1 star is about all it deserves.
The text itself is perfectly adequate. I read ahead quite a bit and was able to understand the concepts fairly well on my own. I do not remember being able to do that when I last took math courses. I don’t know if that is a mark of a superior textbook or my own maturity.
My only real issue with the text is the format. The text is integrated seamlessly with the examples. I prefer to get the broad overview in one go then delve into the examples. Had the formatting drawn a clearer distinction, I could have skipped forward and backward. Instead, it is difficult to discern where the main body of the text begins and the examples end.
The online experience is less agreeable. Because of how the course materials were used in class, the online assignments were best accessed through the course Blackboard site. This means logging onto the Blackboard site with one set of credentials then the publisher’s site with another. I use my blackboard login often enough to commit the credentials to memory but most of my login information is stored on my home computer, consequently I never accessed the course materials remotely during the semester. My accounting class, by contrast, integrated the course materials more seamlessly so I only needed my Blackboard credentials to get access to the text and assignments.
The initial log in to the publisher’s site was far from seamless. The publisher’s site does not play nicely with all browsers or their associated plugins. Tech is notoriously bad at reliable cross platform interoperability but web browsers are supposed to be universal. My browser of choice is not the most popular on the market but you’ve heard of it and likely used it.
Once a little percussive maintenance was performed on my computer, I was able to log on and access the assignments. Once in, the interface feels clunky and antiquated. One format of question, which would recur throughout the semester, required symbols to be dragged and dropped into their appropriate position in an equation. It took a 45 minute online chat with tech support during which I accidentally fixed my own problem to even see the question on my screen. Once the problem was visible, I missed the first one simply because there weren’t adequate instructions on how to use the interface. Most of these stressors were front loaded in my experience with the material. Once the bugs had been ironed out, and I had learned to use the interface, homework became reliable enough.
In fact, to be entirely fair, the academic content of the assignments was fairly good. The answer fields afforded a sufficient margin of error to allow for rounding errors and not unduly mark a question wrong. This was one way in which these course materials were vastly superior to my accounting course materials. Credit where credit is due.
Building comprehensive, turnkey educational content for college course work must be a monumental undertaking. That there are issues along the way is a forgivable sin. But often, the cost of the course materials to the end user exceeds the cost of the course itself. Couple that with the fact that the number one skill I learned in the first four weeks of class what simply how to navigate the course materials and I will simply beg forgiveness for not treating this text more charitably.
Four months ago, I spotted a grad program that excited me in the graduate catalogue. I’ve since abandoned that ambition in no small part because the university canned the program. I have no idea what prerequisites I may have needed but to test the waters, to see if I was up for more schoolin’, I decided to pick up a few classes at the local community college. Statistics was one of those classes in some measure because I wanted to prove that I could have finished it the first time had I the mind to do so. Statistics: Unlocking the Power of Data by five different people with the surname Lock was the course textbook.
Since I last took college coursework, more of the course materials have moved online. Since I last took college coursework, textbook publishers do not seem to have improved much in producing online course materials. Asked to score the text book alone, I might rate it somewhere between 3 and 4 stars out of five. Asked to score the online course materials, 1 star is about all it deserves.
The text itself is perfectly adequate. I read ahead quite a bit and was able to understand the concepts fairly well on my own. I do not remember being able to do that when I last took math courses. I don’t know if that is a mark of a superior textbook or my own maturity.
My only real issue with the text is the format. The text is integrated seamlessly with the examples. I prefer to get the broad overview in one go then delve into the examples. Had the formatting drawn a clearer distinction, I could have skipped forward and backward. Instead, it is difficult to discern where the main body of the text begins and the examples end.
The online experience is less agreeable. Because of how the course materials were used in class, the online assignments were best accessed through the course Blackboard site. This means logging onto the Blackboard site with one set of credentials then the publisher’s site with another. I use my blackboard login often enough to commit the credentials to memory but most of my login information is stored on my home computer, consequently I never accessed the course materials remotely during the semester. My accounting class, by contrast, integrated the course materials more seamlessly so I only needed my Blackboard credentials to get access to the text and assignments.
The initial log in to the publisher’s site was far from seamless. The publisher’s site does not play nicely with all browsers or their associated plugins. Tech is notoriously bad at reliable cross platform interoperability but web browsers are supposed to be universal. My browser of choice is not the most popular on the market but you’ve heard of it and likely used it.
Once a little percussive maintenance was performed on my computer, I was able to log on and access the assignments. Once in, the interface feels clunky and antiquated. One format of question, which would recur throughout the semester, required symbols to be dragged and dropped into their appropriate position in an equation. It took a 45 minute online chat with tech support during which I accidentally fixed my own problem to even see the question on my screen. Once the problem was visible, I missed the first one simply because there weren’t adequate instructions on how to use the interface. Most of these stressors were front loaded in my experience with the material. Once the bugs had been ironed out, and I had learned to use the interface, homework became reliable enough.
In fact, to be entirely fair, the academic content of the assignments was fairly good. The answer fields afforded a sufficient margin of error to allow for rounding errors and not unduly mark a question wrong. This was one way in which these course materials were vastly superior to my accounting course materials. Credit where credit is due.
Building comprehensive, turnkey educational content for college course work must be a monumental undertaking. That there are issues along the way is a forgivable sin. But often, the cost of the course materials to the end user exceeds the cost of the course itself. Couple that with the fact that the number one skill I learned in the first four weeks of class what simply how to navigate the course materials and I will simply beg forgiveness for not treating this text more charitably.
November 26, 2019
I hated that I had to read this but I had to read it for a class
September 20, 2023
Decent Harvard stats book
November 4, 2025
its weird. its limited. the language is negative and condescending and poor. their software associated is terrible. their datasets are limited. I hate this book.
only-a-portion-for-phd
August 4, 2015Very clear and easy to read. Great examples and LOTS of sample problems.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews