OpenIntro Statistics

by David M. Diez

The OpenIntro project was founded in 2009 to improve the quality and availability of education by producing exceptional books and teaching tools that are free to use and easy to modify. Our inaugural effort is OpenIntro Statistics. Probability is optional, inference is key, and we feature real data whenever possible. Files for the entire book are freely available at openintro.org, and anybody can purchase a paperback copy from amazon.com for under $10.

The future for OpenIntro depends on the involvement and enthusiasm of our community. Visit our website, openintro.org. We provide free course management tools, including an online question bank, utilities for creating course quizzes, and many other helpful resources.


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Genres: Mathematics, Nonfiction, Science, Textbooks, Reference, School, Technology

555 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 26, 2012

Reviews

[Terran M · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my favorite introductory statistics book. I've gone through a lot of stats books, and I've found that most of them have either too much math or too little math. I don't want more equations than text, and I also don't want "This here is a NOR-MAL distribution. Can you say NOR-MAL?" This is the "goldilocks" book - just right. It gives a very gentle introduction to what a probability distribution is, but it also covers all the critical concepts and tools: hypothesis and power tests on both continuous quantities and proportions, ANOVA, and Chi-sq tests.

When I'm teaching with this book, I use chapters 1 through 6, but I don't use chapters 7 and 8 on regression, because I think it's a weaksauce explanation; I move my students on to either Introduction to Statistical Learning or Gelman and Hill's multilevel book instead.

This book is also available free online from http://openintro.org

[David Blynov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here's a rough summary of the plotline:

Null Hypothesis: What's the probability that you'll go on a date with me if I ask you out?
Statistician: That question is so random! I guess it depends on your confidence.
Null Hypothesis: Its usually around 95%.
Statistician: Under those conditions, I guess I just have to fail to reject!

And they lived happily ever after.

4.1/5

[Vỹ Hồng · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an introduction to statistics textbook. It serves as the textbook for two introductory Coursera courses on statistics that I recently took:
- https://www.coursera.org/learn/probab...
- https://www.coursera.org/learn/infere...

I find the book very easy to read. The authors provide lots of realistic examples when introducing new concepts. The book exposes the readers with many new statistical concepts, with a focus on how to interpret and apply the statistical tools introduced. There are very little to no proofs of how the formulas and distributions were derived. But this seems appropriate for a first introductory text.

Terminology are carefully chosen and are consistent throughout the text. This is one of the main advantage of reading a textbook over learning from various online resources. So I really appreciate that the authors attention on this point.

There are also lots of exercises, some with solutions and some without. Overall, I find the set of exercises sufficient to help students grasp the essential concepts presented in the corresponding chapter.

[Jake · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very modern accessible introduction to statistics. All the source code for what went into making this book is freely accessible online too, all you need is some basic skills in R or R Markdown to run it. I recommend that you do. While it was too introductory for my needs, this is how textbooks should be made and distributed going forward. Wonderful.

[Olesia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very helpful introductory level textbook with lots of nice examples and clear explanations. All the code and data sets are available on Github.
I wish there were some 'sequels' by the same authors, exploring some of the topics like Bayesian statistics and modeling more deeply.

[Pedro Aphalo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Please see my review at https://doi.org/10.19232/uv4pb.2016.2.90

[Ilan T · Rating 1 out of 5]

wish professor used a REAL book, not a crappy one

[Dmitry Kosintsev · Rating 4 out of 5]

An easy-to-read book on statistics and statistical inference. It has many additional materials that help understand the topics. Additionally, it provides lots of examples. One thing I especially liked about it is how it tries to spark interest in data-driven decision-making and using data to solve problems. However, if you are looking for very solid mathematical explanations, it might not be for you: the author sometimes presents maths formulas in a very unintuitive way and does not formalise them. On the other hand, the author constantly mentions the need for statistical software, but the book does not introduce tools like R or JASP. Though the videos have some R code, it is up to the student to figure out what and how to use it for calculations.

[thirtytwobirds · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pretty good introduction to basic statistics. It moves pretty slowly, which is not necessarily a bad thing -- it lets the book spend plenty of time on the small set of basic topics it does include. It's also got plenty of exercises (half with answers for self-checking) which is great.

I wish they would have included the R code used to produce some of the tables and/or charts, but that's not a dealbreaker.

[Katastrofik Come · Rating 5 out of 5]

it does not shove you all the stuff out of nowhere but rather let you discern it slowly with common sense and critical thinking.
do the exercises especially if you're stucked on understanding the concept.
having a textbook as one of your favourite books might be weird but here we are.

[Runge · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this in preparation for ESL. They lied when they said the math in ESL is simple.

[Betsy Rosalen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent introduction to Statistics and probability with great additional resources on the website too.

[Lew Stanisława · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite an okay introductory textbook. The great thing is the accessibility - free access and easy language.

[Jemma Henderson]

I hate stats but this is a good textbook

[Clara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good introductory level textbook with lots of step-by-step instructions, examples, and practice problems, but I found some explanations of derivations lacking.

[Saruul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Never seen this good intro to stat book.

[Farsan Rashid · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started reading this book as it was a suggested reading for a Coursera(a online learning platform) course on statistics and author of this book Mine C¸etinkaya-Rundel was the course instructor. This book can be a very good introduction to statistics but to get the best out of the book one should also complete the online course.

Pros:
- Lots of real world example. Every concept is introduced using real world example so one can easily connect theory to the applications
- Guided practice. After introducing any new concept an exercise has been inserted into the text for additional practice and guidance. Solutions are provided for all Guided Practice in footnotes. So one do not need to turn pages after pages to find the solution.

Cons:
- Not mathematically rigorous. No mathematical proof for equations for example equation for calculating standard deviations is given. Uses intuition to rely on a a equation.

[Evrim · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best Statistics books out there. Examples, videos, solved problems, and other material makes this a good teaching and learning tool. As a teacher who has been teaching statistics for nearly a decade, I believe this book taught me many different ways of explaining complex statistical ideas for students new to statistics. I highly recommend it.

[Joshua · Rating 4 out of 5]

OpenIntro Statistics is a great starting point for learning the basics of statistics. The real world examples really helped make the material entertaining and digestible.

However， if you're looking for something deeper, you may want to look elsewhere.

[Yifan Yang · Rating 4 out of 5]

Best introduction book for statistics. It doesn't say many details or formula for probabilities or how to understand probability, that's why I gave only 4 stars. But as for the statistical part, it's really understandable, introduce those concepts and why they are used step by step.

[Fred · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome book. I learned more about statistics just reading than I did through online intro videos.

[Andrew Torba · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really good examples and exercises. Lack of math proofs