Discovering Statistics Using IBM SPSS Statistics

About the Book

With a little help from his weird band of characters the Fourth Edition of the award-winning book continues, with its unique blend of humour and collection of bizarre examples, to bring statistics - from first principles to advanced concepts - well and truly to life using IBM SPSS Statistics.

Lecturers: with WebAssign® you can manage and monitor your students′ progress quickly and easily online or give them more opportunities to practise! 
Ideal for short courses, choose to use WebAssign® alongside the Fourth Edition of Andy Field′s textbook to quickly set up courses and schedule assignments (using the  2159 questions available) and track individual performance so you can spot in an instant where more instruction or practice is needed. If not using for fomal assessment, WebAssign® still lets you set questions for your students to practise over and over again. They get instant feedback and also links to the relevant chapter or section in the integral ebook to help them work out the correct solution.

Students please note: access to WebAssign® is dependent not only on the purchase of a student access code (ISBN: 9781446273043) but also a username, institution code and password supplied by your course leader/instructor.

SAGE MobileStudy - study where and when you like
Scan any QR code within the book to access revision material on a smartphone or tablet such as Cramming Sam′s Study tips, flashcard glossaries, interactive multiple choice questionnaires and more.

Support materials for a wide range of disciplines
Education and Sport Sciences lecturer support materials with enhanced ones for Psychology, Business and Management and the Health Sciences on the enhanced Companion Website make the book even more relevant to a wider range of subjects across the social sciences and where statistics is taught to a cross-disciplinary audience.

Other major new updates include:

• Now fully compatible with recent IBM SPSS Statistics releases.
• Two new characters! Statistical cult leader Oditi provides students with access to video clips via his Lantern to help further understanding of statistical/SPSS concepts, while Confusius helps students to make better sense of statistical terms.
• The enhanced Companion Website offers plenty of lecturer and student material to use in conjunction with the textbook. These include PowerPoints and subject-specific testbanks for lecturers as well as answers to the Smart Alex tasks at the end of the each chapter; datafiles for testing problems in SPSS; flashcards of key concepts; self-assessment multiple-choice questions; and online videos of key statistical and SPSS procedures discussed in the textbook for students.

Table of Contents:
Why Is My Evil Lecturer Forcing Me to Learn Statistics? What Will This Chapter Tell Me? What The Hell Am I Doing Here? I Don′t Belong Here Initial Observation: Finding Something That Needs Explaining Generating Theories And Testing Them Collect Data to Test Your Theory Analyzing Data Reporting Data Everything You Never Wanted to Know about Statistics What Will This Chapter Tell Me? Building Statistical Models Populations And Samples Statistical Models Going Beyond The Data Using Statistical Models To Test Research Questions Modern Approaches toTheory Testing Reporting Statistical Models The IBM SPSS Statistics Environment What Will This Chapter Tell Me? Versions Of IBM SPSS Statistics Windows versus MacOS Getting Started The Data Editor Importing Data The SPSS Viewer Exporting SPSS Output The Syntax Editor Saving Files Retrieving A File Exploring Data with Graphs What Will This Chapter Tell Me? The Art Of Presenting Data The SPSS Chart Builder Histograms Boxplots (Box-Whisker Diagrams) Graphing Means: Bar Charts And Error Bars Line Charts Graphing Relationships: The Scatterplot Editing Graphs The Best of Bias What Will This Chapter Tell Me? What is Bias? Spotting Bias Reducing Bias Non-parametric Models What Will This Chapter Tell Me? When to Use Non-parametric Tests General Procedure on Non-parametric Tests in SPSS Comparing Teo Independent Conditions: The Wilcox Rank-sum Test and Mann-Whitney Test Comparing Two Related Conditions: the Wilcoxon Signed-rank Test Differences Between Several Independent Groups: The Kruskal-Wallis Test Differences Between Several Related Groups: Friedman′s ANOVA Correlation What Will This Chapter Tell Me? Modelling Relationships Data Entry For Correlation Analysis Using SPSS Bivariate Correlation Partial Correlation Comparing Correlations Calculating The Effect Size How To Report Correlation Coefficents Regression What Will This Chapter Tell Me? An Introduction To Regression Bias in Regression Models? Regression Using SPSS: One Predictor Multiple Regression Regression With Several Predictors Using SPSS Interpreting Multiple Regression Comparing Two Means What Will This Chapter Tell Me? Looking at Differences The t-test Assumptions of the t-test The Independent t-test Using SPSS Paired-samples t-test Using SPSS Between Groups or Repeated Measures What is I Violate the Test Assumptions Moderation, Mediation and More Regression What Will This Chapter Tell Me? Installing Custom Dialog Boxes in SPSS Moderation: Interactions in Regression Mediation Categorical Predictors in Regression Comparing Several Means: ANOVA (GLM 1) What Will This Chapter Tell Me? The Theory Behind Anova Assumptions of Anova Planned Contrasts Post hoc Procedures Running One-way Anova in SPSS Output From One-way Anova Calculating the Effect Size Reporting Results From One-way Independent Anova Analysis of Covariance, ANCOVA (GLM 2) What Will This Chapter Tell Me? What Is ANCOVA? Assumptions And Issues In ANCOVA Conducting ANCOVA in SPSS Interpreting the Output From ANCOVA Testing The Assumption Of Homogeneity Of Regression Slopes Calculating The Effect Size Reporting Results Factorial ANOVA (GLM 3) What Will This Chapter Tell Me? Theory Of Factorial ANOVA (Independent Designs) Assumptions of Factorial ANOVA Factorial ANOVA using SPSS Output From Factorial ANOVA Interpreting Interaction Graphs Calculating Effect Sizes Reporting The Results Of Two-Way ANOVA Repeated-Measures Designs (GLM 4) What Will This Chapter Tell Me? Introduction To Repeated Measures Designs Theory Of One-Way Repeated-Measures ANOVA Assumptions in Repeated-Measures ANOVA One-Way Repeated Measures ANOVA Using SPSS Output For One-Way Repeated-Measures ANOVA Effect Sizes For Repeated-Measures ANOVA Reporting One-Way Repeated-Measures ANOVA Factorial Repeated-Measures Designs Output For Factorial Repeated-Measures ANOVA Effect Sizes For Factorial Repeated-Measures ANOVA Reporting The Results From Factorial Repeated-Measures ANOVA Mixed Design ANOVA (GLM 5) What Will This Chapter Tell Me? Mixed Designs Assumptions in Mixed Designs What Do Men And Women Look For In A Partner? Mixed ANOVA in SPSS Output For Mixed Factorial ANOVA Calculating Effect Sizes Reporting The Results Of Mixed ANOVA Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) What Will This Chapter Tell Me? When To Use MANOVA Introduction Theory Of MANOVA Practical Issues When Conducting MANOVA MANOVA Using SPSS Output From MANOVA Reporting Results From MANOVA Following Up MANOVA With Discriminant Analysis Output From The Discriminant Analysis Reporting Results From from Discriminant Analysis The Final Interpretation Exploratory Factor Analysis What Will This Chapter Tell Me? When To Use Factor Analysis Factors and Components Discovering Factors Research Example Running The Analysis Interpreting Output From SPSS How To Report Factor Analysis Reliability Analysis How To Report Reliability Analysis Categorical Data What Will This Chapter Tell Me? Analysing Categorical Data Theory Of Analysing Categorical Data Assumptions When Analysing Categorical Data Doing Chi-Square in SPSS Log-Linear Analysis Using SPSS Effect Sizes In Loglinear Analysis Reporting The Results Of Loglinear Analysis Logistic Regression What Will This Chapter Tell Me? Background to Logistic Regression What are the Principles Behind Logistic Regression? Sources of Bias and Common Problems Binary Logistic Regression: An Example That Will Make You Feel Eel Interpreting Logistic Regression How to Report Logistic Regression Testing Assumptions: Another Example Predicting Several Categories: Multinominal Logistic Regression Multilevel Linear Models What Will This Chapter Tell Me? Hierarchical Data Theory Of Multilevel Linear Models The Multilevel Model Some Practical Issues Multilevel Modelling Using SPSS Growth Models How To Report A Multilevel Model A Message From The Octopus of Inescapable Despair Epilogue Nice Emails Everybody Thinks I′m A Statistician Craziness on a Grand Scale

About the Author :
Andy Field is Professor of Quantitative Methods at the University of Sussex. He has published widely (100+ research papers, 29 book chapters, and 17 books in various editions) in the areas of child anxiety and psychological methods and statistics. His current research interests focus on barriers to learning mathematics and statistics. He is internationally known as a statistics educator. He has written several widely used statistics textbooks including Discovering Statistics Using IBM SPSS Statistics (winner of the 2007 British Psychological Society book award), Discovering Statistics Using R, and An Adventure in Statistics (shortlisted for the British Psychological Society book award, 2017; British Book Design and Production Awards, primary, secondary and tertiary education category, 2016; and the Association of Learned & Professional Society Publishers Award for innovation in publishing, 2016), which teaches statistics through a fictional narrative and uses graphic novel elements. He has also written the adventr and discovr packages for the statistics software R that teach statistics and R through interactive tutorials. His uncontrollable enthusiasm for teaching statistics to psychologists has led to teaching awards from the University of Sussex (2001, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019), the British Psychological Society (2006) and a prestigious UK National Teaching fellowship (2010). He′s done the usual academic things: had grants, been on editorial boards, done lots of admin/service but he finds it tedious trying to remember this stuff. None of them matter anyway because in the unlikely event that you′ve ever heard of him it′ll be as the ′Stats book guy′. In his spare time, he plays the drums very noisily in a heavy metal band, and walks his cocker spaniel, both of which he finds therapeutic.

Review :
I think this is a really good starting point for teaching stats – from assuming students knows nothing about and taking them gradually to a more advanced understanding. The book is – very helpfully- full of interesting examples and engaging style of writing. I like it that the book has several ‘levels of difficulty’ and engages both with practical stats and theory. The book I believe is targeted at UG students mainly, but some chapters can be recommended to MA students on research methods courses provided that they know nothing about statistics – the book is written in a very accessible manner which means that it can satisfy the need of international students in terms of level of difficulty and language (and business programmes normally have a lot of international students at MA level). The explanations are logically organized and explained in a lucid and clear manner. Little features like ‘faces’ I believe would make the book more attractive to UG students. I think self-test questions and the tasks at the end of chapter are very helpful, as well as the real world data and (often humorous) examples. My course is MA so I am not adopting this book for a course as a main text, but I may recommend it to students who are completely unfamiliar with statistics. Andy Field has done it again.  The fourth edition of Discovering Statistics will transform students who approach statistics with fear and loathing into adroit statistics users who understand key statistical concepts.  Field’s book is a practical ‘how to’ guide for conducting and understanding basic and advanced statistical analyses using IBM SPSS Statistics.  The book is geared toward behavioural and social sciences researchers at all levels – from undergraduates taking their very first statistics course, to postgraduates.  My students are in the teacher education department and they do not bring a whole lot of mathematics background, so the textbook on data analysis is one way to assist them in understanding the statistical concepts as these apply to data analysis. The SPSS book is of great assistance to them and to me. Discovering Statistics using IBM SPSS Statistics is a truly excellent statistics book for Psychology students - and indeed their teachers. The level of explanation is spot on for our requirements. It is clearly a statistics resource for Psychologists that has been prepared by a Psychologist. The material is tailored perfectly for the needs of that audience. Unfortunately, I find that I can′t recommend it for the particular course I teach on as it is too expensive to be appropriate for the portion of teaching I provide - although as a book in its own right I think its price is very reasonable. Please can you send me an address or details of how I can return the text to you.
Sincerely
Robert Johnston

have used it for years--good practical guide to using SPSS with just the right amount of statistical discussion.

Such a fantastic statistics book, very detailed and full of examples. I believe this is a must have book for lecturers, researchers, and statisticians. It is holistic and essentially covers everything about statistics.

Simply best statistics books I have come across so far. It is an excellent textbook. It is readable and comprehensive. I highly recommend this book for any researcher using SPSS. Great textbook Brilliant resource for students who are using statistics and SPSS for the first time. The book offers a step-by-step guide of using SPSS. This book directly helps students (and lecturers indirectly) understand statistics as a tangible phenomenon, not an abstract thing they hate and have to get a sufficient grade for. Statistics is a research tool and this book makes that very practice a living heaven. This is a first class text for new and old users of SPSS. Well laid out and written in an eminently readable style - almost bed-time reading. This is a first class text for new and old users of SPSS. Well laid out and written in an eminently readable style - almost bed-time reading. just a fantastic textbook on day-to-day statistics for psychologists It is the best book I know of that describes both the theory and application of statistical methods. The book goes into great detail and provides real-life illustrations. The support materials are amazing--probably the number 1 reason for adopting. This book is a life saver for students who struggle with SPSS, and is a real support for us as dissertation supervisors. Engagingly written, and highly recommended. I think the testimonial of the students summarizes it best with Andy Field′s work towards statistics teaching: ′I did not know stats could be funny′.
I regularly point my dissertation students to this book in order to see them try independently their analysis, and they always come back to me with little to change/edit. Andy Field is brilliant at making statistics funny and interesting to read. Bravo! It is nice to have a book that clearly describes statistics for those who need help breaking down complex analyses This is an optional text for my course. Extremely helpful for those students interested in doing more intensive analyses. I give lectures of Psychometrics to the students of the third year of psychology at the University of Lodz. So far, I recommended them the second edition of Andy Field′s book "Discovering Statistics Using SPSS”, which I bought in 2008 during the XXIX International Congress of Psychologyin Berlin, Germany. In the meantime, the third edition was published, which I did not have a chance to meet. After purchasing the second edition I immediately fell in love with the manual, recommending it to my students as the most friendly and "student centered" textbook while retaining a very high level of academic books that I know. The fourth edition has the same advantages. It teaches application of statistics in the field of psychology, while guiding the statistical analysis from the painful struggle in the space of joy and pure fun.
Comparing the two issue step by step, I noticed a huge change in both form and content of editing. All these changes have proved to be very beneficial for the manual. Starting from the form it is worth paying attention to an even greater degree of personalize the recipient - the author often says to me as to the reader, and less to us - anonymous readers. He also increased from 4 to 10 group of sympathetic characters commenting on statistical issues from different points of view. Their role is to impart the importance of selected parts of the manual, but I also perceive them as a representative group of my students. Characters not only organize the contents but shows the full of prejudice to the statistics, psychology students that everyone, even Craming Sam can master the most important part of the material. A great idea was to provide the reader with real data and video tutorial by absolutely fantastic companion website (in the previous edition this book was accompanied by a CD-but, according to the Authors’ children ‘CD-ROMs are for losers’ and probably they are right).Assessing the content I think, very valuable is grading the problem from Chapter 1 to 20. Looking through it in a more detailed way I noticed a lot of changes, so that my students and I myself will be able to meet the new challenges of the research that is now emerging in psychology. First of all, this edition is written using version 20 and 21 of IBM SPSS statistics we currently use. What, however, in most caught my attention and caused a huge desire to have a book, that was the chapter 10 devoted to the analysis of Mediation and Moderation. From the moment I received the book, it′s been a little more time to fully appreciate it, but I′ve had time to test some of my data. So far I′ve been using the Baron and Kenny mediation analysis, now by installing PROCESS command I can save a lot of time and I can report the indirect effect using bootstrap confidence intervals. Very valuable is therefore also considered adding a bootstrapping procedure in each chapter.
Author writes in the preface that he fears that the next edition "will ruin all of my previous hard work." Do not worry, you can only wonder if it is possible the next release of better than this? Great text! Field′s "Discovering Statistics" is a great book for students as well as more senior researchers when it comes to understanding statistics and SPSS in a very applied way. I recommend it to my students who are looking for an easy access to learning statistics autodidactically." Excellent book for students, excellent resources for lecturers. Chapters do not provide a section on reporting results in APA format A very clear explanation of the principles of statistical analysis and using SPSS to analyse quantitative data A reordered and updated version of what is becoming a classic text. Perhaps not for the squeemish but otherwise a very helpful text. This is the go-to text for both students and staff. The author′s friendly and down-to-earth writing style, and his acknowledgement that he originally found maths and statistics difficult, make for a disarming yet comprehensive text that is accessible and helpful for students. Not appropriate for course Not appropriate for course This book is fantastic for teaching students statistics! Due to the differenct characters, the different labels and levels makes this book easy to use for students and for the lecturer. GREAT BOOK! Excellent book! Thorough and pedagogical. and fun to read (!) But a bit too advanced for the level of the intended course. I will however recommend it highly to both students and colleagues and have also suggested it as litterature for our doctoral programme. Looks like a great statistics text for teaching students in a professional psychology PsyD program. Looking forward to using it! Probably this will be replaced with the R version of the textbook, as per the limitations of SPSS. The textbook itself - a masterpiece! Field′s excellent work on Statistics provides the lecturer with the most interesting and intriguing tool for teaching statistics and quantitative analysis. The book is original in many ways and cleverly designed for increasing students′ attention and focus. Turning statistics into pleasure is what this book does. I highly recommend this book to my student for their personal use regarding to the lecture. I think is a "funny way" to explain everything, not only regarding to the analysis process but also regarding to the theoretical base. I consider it as a very useful handbook to deep on the data analysis and an essential reference to develop their Master thesis. An excellent and comprehensive overview of the essential techniques in quantitative analysis. This is an excellent text that students can use throughout their degree. It is accessible for students with a background in other disciplines as well as psychology. A must have for novices, advanced learners, practitioners as well as lecturers. Simply because the books is informative, easy to read, close to daily problems (in statistics) and last not least funny to read. Enjoy! A very good level of coverage and therefore a very good reference for considering alternative approaches to research. I thought the book could have said something on Fuzzy Logic or even the link between quantitative and qualitative analysis and the continuum nature of stat. This textbook is wonderful for use in any introductory statistics course. The author makes light of a daunting topic and it is evident through the explanations and his summaries. Despite the lighthearted approach to statistics the textbook is thorough and provides excellent exemplars throughout. It also includes great data sets for your class to complete independent analysis that mirror the books lesson plans. I would strongly recommend this textbook for any level course. A must have for anyone doing quantitative research and using SPSS. It′s essential for teaching statistics while using SPSS and a must have if doing a Masters or Doctorate requiring inferential stats. Field has a knack of simplifying the most complex of statistical gymnastics. I recommend this book to all my Bachelor, Master and PhD students as this book is both accessible and informative. The images of SPSS datafiles and output really clarify the steps to be taken and helps students overcome their ′fear′ for statistics. This is a very comprehensive and accessible text book that is suitable for higher level nursing students (Masters/PhD) who are looking to develop independent statistical analysis skills. The book takes a psychological approach to statistical analysis, as such, the examples used may not always be entirely relevant to nursing / healthcare students. Great pedagogy.
Awful humor - makes the adults in my graduate level course cringe. Best book for learning statistics and SPSS in one volume. Thorough, minimizes the intimidation factor. great examples explaining hard concepts Brilliant book, the best on the market. A bit too advanced and too big for our first year students to use as a main text. If they are interested in using statistics this is the one I advise them to buy. This is the best statistics textbook I have found. It focuses on application and implementation in SPSS to teach statistics, with just the right amount of theory for most students. The book represents a very comprehensive overview of the key quantitative methods in social sciences research. I found it very well structured and easy enough to grasp the new knowledge. It consists of comprehensive theoretical explanations and a good portion of relevant examples and exercises to work on.

The only mismatch for my course and a reason why I did not adopt the book as essential course reading is the fact that I find it importamt to start my course by familiarizing the students with survey planning, quantitative survey design, new measures development etc. These issues are not tackled in the textbook. More focus could be put on the essential parts of quantitative research that preceed the data analysis. It is a great book and easy for my students to follow I have used prior editions of this book, good for foundation statistics in social science especially for students who do not have quantitative backgrounds, suits some students very well. Perfect blend of applied and theoretical data analysis This is an excellent book making statistics accessable to students who traditionally fear them. However the book was for a distance learning course that will attract students from all occupations and countries who are more comfortable with a more formal style of delivery. An excellent book with improvements in this latest edition. Very keen for this to become a recommended textbook for second and third year undergraduates on our Sport Studies and Sport and Exercise Science Degrees. Still a great book, suitable for all levels of study in Higher Education. Useful book especially for research metods purposes I liked the textbook not being the normal dull statistics text. I also needed an emphasis on SPSS -- which it serves up nicely. Very much improved text - keeping up to date with developments in what psychology students can be expected to understand. Many statistics textbooks for college students suffer from one of two ailments. Either it incorporates too much math for non-stats majors or they provide oversimplified explanations. This text is an excellent intuitive approach to presenting statistics with insightful explanations. Realy interesting approach to deal with complicated statistical methods. Students seem to rely on the book for their statistics comprehension and SPSS usage. Excellent book. Best on the market. Only recommended as supplemental because module covers all sorts of data gathering techniques, and not just data analysis. Excellent book. Best on the market. Only recommended as supplemental because module covers all sorts of data gathering techniques, and not just data analysis. No student mastering statistical analyses using SPSS should be without this book. This is essential reading for my project students who are adopting quantitative techniques. Useful and lively, great to dip into when discussing analysis in supervision. Using statistics can be daunting especially for those who are inexperienced at applying them. Using SPSS can be helpful but understanding how the software works provides a steep learning curve for those who have never used it before. Andy Fields book simplifies both topics by presenting step-by-step guidelines on the use of statistics in SPSS. The book provides a comprehensive discussion on a variety of topics including non-parametric statistics, factor analysis, analysis of variance, regression and correlation amongst others. The book is also unique in the statistics field because the author has a lovely sense of humour which he has used to good effect. Indeed, the name of the first chapter provides an illustration of his humour, “Why is my evil lecturer forcing me to learn statistics?” He uses this humour in his illustrations of statistical analysis. These include the World’s Biggest Liar Competition, Brian Haemorrhage’s attempt to woo Jane Superbrain and Smart Alex’s problem with a stalker. This injection of humour makes the book much easier and more interesting to read and provides useful examples of the statistics and how they can be used. I would highly recommend this book for both novice and experienced statisticians alike. It is also an excellent book to recommend to students as it provides a good introduction to statistics and is presented in a reader-friendly fashion. Andy Field succeeds to handle a very difficult subject with success (and humor). Through simple language, step-by-step procedures and good examples he addresses the use of statistics and specifically the IBS SPSS program very clearly. This book is highly recommended for the beginner as well as more established researcher. Excellent text, good instructor resources and students find the supplementary materials very helpful I have been using this book since its first edition. It is an excellent resource. I absolutely love this book, and I find it the most useful, clear and easy to read statistics manual.
It would be my first recommendation for both staff and students. On the reading list as a good book to read for SPSS statistics. A very approachable writing style for those who are not natural statisticians! another excellent book by andy field - i use it with how to design and report experiments.
only problem there is no ebook - my library would be every interested in having an ebook - have requested twice. I have been a fan of this text since the 2nd edition, and this version is a noticeable improvement on those that came before. Like a lot of Psychologists, I do not have a strong maths background so I need all the help I can get. This text provides that help, showing not just the how of statistics in SPSS, but also the when and the why in a format that is easy to understand. I am using this text as the primary reference for a lecture series beginning this Friday and have recommended it to all my students. The instructor materials on the companion website are also extremely useful. Finding that Andy Field had already made a powerpoint presentation for each chapter of the book saved me a lot of work, thanks! We have adopted this text as essential text for Research Methods 1 (Year 1) and Research Methods 2 (Year 2).

We have 3 senior statistics demonstrators who will also need inspection copies for the 4th Edition please! We have 250 students who really liked this text. Our statistics demonstrators will also need to have 4 inspection copies please An excellent book, very user friendly 4th edition again excellent high level textbook on data statistical analysis. more than just an introduction. Extremely useful, as it clarifies all options and possibilities for researchers using SPSS for their data analysis This is a superb edition of a well loved work. I strongly endorse it for postgraduate students undertaking quantitative analyses. This book makes it easier for students and researchers to understand the many applications of statistics in social science. I found that the content of the book was explained in a straightforward, simple, accessible manner, with some rather amusing ′real-life′ examples to illustrate the points being made by the author. Furthermore, the author explains in greater detail what the statistics is, why we use it, what the estimation is and all of this is done by providing a step-by-step approach.

Overall, this book is definitely an essential book that should be adopted by Universities as the contents map perfectly onto essential statistical knowledge most social sciences students need to learn in their first years. This is an excellent textbook which provides detailed background information on statistical testing, alongside guided notes for analysing the data on SPSS. A tried and tested text book that never fails to educate and amuse. Contains everything our undergraduate students ever need to know about statistical methods. Excellent, easy to follow guide. I could not recommend Andy Field′s book more highly. He takes what can be an anxiety provoking and tedious subject for some, and manages to make it fun and engaging. Use it for supervision on thesis, well written and easy to use This is an amazing book for discovering statistics. I will recommend this book to my students as extra reading material. Even if they do not understand stats - they will be able to have a better understanding of their data using this book. An essential accompaniment to all research methods courses. THE textbook on statistics that I always recommend to students, great book Student understand Fields writing. A good text that I recommend to my students and many of them actually use it for their research! Useful for when you need a deeper argument for using a particular analysis, but don′t want to get too bogged down in the underlying maths. 1. I love the way content is covered in this book. It is accessible and humorous without being dumbed down.
2. The price is reasonable for the quality and quantity of material provided (unlike several other texts I reviewed!).
Fantastic, easy to understand book on statistics. My students love it! We decided not to adopt this particular text because it was too advanced for the BSW program. I did recommend this text to a colleague of mine who teaches a PhD level social statistics course and she has decided to use this text for that class. If I have the opportunity to teach a Masters or PhD level stats class I would heavily consider this book. It is quite excellent! Quality insight in how to apply statistical techniques whilst understanding the theoretical underpinnings of different tests. Field′s 4th edition is an effective teaching tool. It spans fundamental concepts and also assists me to teach more complex, multi-variate techniques which are so important but often covered at a very high level in other technical textbooks. Relating the techniques to SPSS is always of value since SPSS can be opaque at times. The section of planned comparisons is particulary useful in this regard as are the explanations of how SPSS treats missing data. The style continues to become more personal through the editions and as the author himself says, some students respond to this, others do not. I currently do not teach resarch methods but students at our university still are recommended this book for their dissertation so I am pleased I still have a copy to advise my tutees and dissertation students A highly comprehensive text suitable for undergraduate and postgraduate students. This is the only book most students should need. Excellent book. A little quirky in terms of Field′s sense of humor but the students enjoy it. Best introductory book on statistics and SPSS I have encountered I like the integrated approach of teaching statistics and SPSS. This book will be used for a graduate level Quant Methods class. I have used the previous editions in the past and I want to continue with this text. The 4th edition appears to be an improvement over the 3rd edition-better organized and I like the addition of the moderation and mediation chapter. Great book which I will most certainly be recommending to our Masters students.