Essential Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences

by Gregory J. Privitera

Essential Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences delivers clear, concise, and relevant statistics instruction to students so they can better understand the world around them. Award-winning teacher and author Gregory J. Privitera relates statistics to the behavioral sciences using current, practical research examples and provides robust pedagogy throughout, allowing students to continually check their comprehension and hone their skills. Carefully developed features and exercises seamlessly integrate IBM® SPSS® support. Extensive supporting features and a conversational tone throughout the book make it approachable while helping students better understand the reasoning and context for statistics. The Third Edition highlights the latest thinking on research transparency so students can use statistics properly and recognize their misuse. Sage Vantage Learning Platform This text is offered in Sage Vantage, an intuitive learning platform that integrates quality Sage textbook content with assignable multimedia activities and auto-graded assessments to drive student engagement and ensure accountability. Unparalleled in its ease of use and built for dynamic teaching and learning, Vantage offers customizable LMS integration and best-in-class support. Highlights SPSS in Focus Screencasts walk students through using SPSS for each statistical technique. NEW! An AI Literacy module prepares students to engage confidently with today’s AI tools through an interactive, outcomes-focused experience—with minimal instructor lift and no course redesign required. Available exclusively in Sage Vantage and written by professors who teach and publish about AI, the AI Information Literacy, Academic Integrity, and Responsible AI Use integrates video, data driven examples, applied activities, Knowledge Checks, and built-in assessments that help instructors track student understanding. Focused on strengthening critical thinking, the module teaches students how to evaluate AI outputs for accuracy and bias while developing responsible prompting strategies that support academic success without compromising students′ intellectual growth. NEW! A suite of assessment tools that are auto-graded and easy to Knowledge Checks occur at the end of each major section in the eBook. These low-stakes questions help students make sure they understand the material before moving on. Practice Problems at the end of the chapter are students′ opportunity to check their own learning. These formative problem sets, based on questions from the end-of-chapter assessments, give students an opportunity to try out their skills with a mix of multiple choice and numeric entry responses. The "Try Another Version" feature allows students to make another attempt with a similar question aligned to the same learning objective. The Chapter Quiz tests the major concepts in the chapter with a variety of question types, including multi-part word problems similar to ones they might encounter on an exam. Each part builds on the previous one to reinforce critical thinking and procedural understanding—for example, defining the question, identifying variables, and solving equations in sequence. Students can receive immediate feedback, and their results sync automatically to the Vantage gradebook and your LMS, with no extra grading required. NEW! Available in Practice Problems, the Try Another Version feature supports skill-building through versioned practice. Students can attempt similar questions with new variables, aligned to the same learning objective, Bloom’s level, and level of rigor—ideal for targeted repetition and mastery. NEW! Numeric input lets students enter exact numerical answers in all assessment types—ideal for statistics problems that require precise values and calculations. NEW! All tables and figures in both the assessments and the eBook are now downloadable.

817 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 16, 2014

Reviews

[Jim Razinha · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the textbook assigned for my son's statistics class, and... it's a textbook. I'm a mechanical engineer, with math up to intermediate partial differential equations under my belt and I told him there's a reason I've never taken a statistics class, but I was curious. I admit I didn't work all of the problems - enough to check ...and find some errors - one was computational; a formula for variance is correct in the text, but wrong in the problem (but correct in the answer, go figure). And this is the 13th edition.

Bottom line, this is serviceable if you have to use this stuff. And really, only academics will. And just because the title says it's for behavioral sciences, that's just because of the way the problems are cast that way. Models don't apply to individuals, rather groups at best. This is base level statistics and I'm still glad I never had to take a class in it.

[Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this for one of my classes. I'm not a math person so it was a huge struggle. Thanks to Heavenly Fathers help I got through it and passed with a much better grade than I thought I would earn.