Experimental Design and Statistics for Psychology: A First Course is a concise, straighforward and accessible introduction to the design of psychology experiments and the statistical tests used to make sense of their results. Makes abundant use of charts, diagrams and figures. Assumes no prior knowledge of statistics. Invaluable to all psychology students needing a firm grasp of the basics, but tackling of some of the topic’s more complex, controversial issues will also fire the imagination of more ambitious students. Covers different aspects of experimental design, including dependent versus independent variables, levels of treatment, experimental control, random versus systematic errors, and within versus between subjects design. Provides detailed instructions on how to perform statistical tests with SPSS. Downloadable instructor resources to supplement and support your lectures can be found at www.blackwellpublishing.com/sani and include sample chapters, test questions, SPSS data sets, and figures and tables from the book.

This is the first textbook for psychologists which combines the model comparison method in statistics with a hands-on guide to computer-based analysis and clear explanations of the links between models, hypotheses and experimental designs. Statistics is often seen as a set of cookbook recipes which must be learned by heart. Model comparison, by contrast, provides a mental roadmap that not only gives a deeper level of understanding, but can be used as a general procedure to tackle those problems which can be solved using orthodox statistical methods. Statistics and Experimental Design for Psychologists focusses on the role of Occam's principle, and explains significance testing as a means by which the null and experimental hypotheses are compared using the twin criteria of parsimony and accuracy. This approach is backed up with a strong visual element, including for the first time a clear illustration of what the F-ratio actually does, and why it is so ubiquitous in statistical testing. The book covers the main statistical methods up to multifactorial and repeated measures, ANOVA and the basic experimental designs associated with them. The associated online supplementary material extends this coverage to multiple regression, exploratory factor analysis, power calculations and other more advanced topics, and provides screencasts demonstrating the use of programs on a standard statistical package, SPSS. Of particular value to third year undergraduate as well as graduate students, this book will also have a broad appeal to anyone wanting a deeper understanding of the scientific method. Contents: What is Science?Comparing Different Models of a Set of DataTesting Hypotheses and Recording the Result: Types of ValidityBasic Descriptive Statistics (and How Pierre Laplace Saved the World)Bacon's Legacy: Causal Models, and How to Test ThemHow Hypothesis Testing Copes with Uncertainty: The Legacy of Karl Popper and Ronald FisherGaussian Distributions, the Building Block of Parametric StatisticsRandomized Controlled Trials, the Model T Ford of ExperimentsThe Independent Samples t-Test, the Analytical Engine of the RCTGeneralising the t-Test: One-Way ANOVAMultifactorial Designs and Their ANOVA CounterpartsRepeated Measures Designs, and Their ANOVA CounterpartsAppendices:On Finding the Right Effect SizeWhy Orthogonal Contrasts are UsefulMathematical Justification for the Occam LineGlossaryFurther ReadingReferencesIndex Readership: Students of undergraduate and graduate level psychology, and academics involved in research.

For this second edition, this best-selling textbook has been revised, the coverage of two-sample tests extended, and new sections added introducing one-sample tests, linear regression, and the product-moment correlation coefficient.

A complete course in data collection and analysis for students who need to go beyond the basics. A true course companion, the engaging writing style takes readers through challenging topics, blending examples and exercises with careful explanations and custom-drawn figures ensuring the most daunting concepts can be fully understood.

This open access textbook provides the background needed to correctly use, interpret and understand statistics and statistical data in diverse settings. Part I makes key concepts in statistics readily clear. Parts I and II give an overview of the most common tests (t-test, ANOVA, correlations) and work out their statistical principles. Part III provides insight into meta-statistics (statistics of statistics) and demonstrates why experiments often do not replicate. Finally, the textbook shows how complex statistics can be avoided by using clever experimental design. Both non-scientists and students in Biology, Biomedicine and Engineering will benefit from the book by learning the statistical basis of scientific claims and by discovering ways to evaluate the quality of scientific reports in academic journals and news outlets.

"Free CD contains several real and artificial data sets used in the book in SPSS, SYSTAT, and ASCII formats"--Cover