A new approach to statistics, in plain English, this text explains what statistics mean & how they are used, rather than how to calculate them.

Dana K. Keller and Mary Lou Casadevall-Keller provide readers with a highly accessible introduction to the fundamental concepts of research methods in The Tao of Research: A Path to Validity. This brief, engaging book approaches the topic of research through an exploration of the issues that threaten validity in the process of knowledge generation. Key Features Examines the propositional, ethical, structural, functional, and technical restrictions researchers face Focuses on understanding how these restrictions influence research methods and results Makes concepts more accessible through discussions that follow the experiences of three "guides"—a high school principal, a statewide director of public health, and a sociology professor at a small liberal arts college. The Tao of Research: A Path to Validity serves as either a main or supplemental text for courses such as Introduction to Research Methods, Social Research Methods, and Applied Research Methods.

This book presents up-to-date theory and methods of statistical hypothesis testing based on measure theory. The so-called statistical space is a measurable space adding a family of probability measures. Most topics in the book will be developed based on this term. The book includes some typical data sets, such as the relation between race and the death penalty verdict, the behavior of food intake of two kinds of Zucker rats, and the per capita income and expenditure in China during the 1978?2002 period. Emphasis is given to the process of finding appropriate statistical techniques and methods of evaluating these techniques.

Statistics: A Short, Clear Guide is an accessible, humorous and easy introduction to statistics for social science students. In this refreshing book, experienced author and academic Neil Burdess shows that statistics are not the result of some mysterious "black magic", but rather the result of some very basic arithmetic. Getting rid of confusing x′s and y′s, he shows that it′s the intellectual questions that come before and after the calculations that are important: (i) What are the best statistics to use with your data? and (ii) What do the calculated statistics tell you? Statistics: A Short, Clear Guide aims to help students make sense of the logic of statistics and to decide how best to use statistics to analyse their own data. What′s more, it is not reliant on students having access to any particular kind of statistical software package. This is a very useful book for any student in the social sciences doing a statistics course or needing to do statistics for themselves for the first time.

• An overview of descriptive and inferential statistics without formulas and computations. • Clear and to-the-point narrative makes this short book perfect for all courses in which statistics are discussed. • Helps statistics students who are struggling with the concepts. Shows them the meanings of the statistics they are computing. • This book is easy to digest because it is divided into short sections with review questions at the end of each section. • Running sidebars draw students’ attention to important concepts.

Revision of author's thesis (doctoral)--Columbia University, 2014, titled Making it count: statistics and state-society relations in the early People's Republic of China, 1949-1959.