The Joy of Stats: A Short Guide to Introductory Statistics in the Social Sciences, Third Edition

The Joy of Stats offers a reader-friendly introduction to applied statistics and quantitative analysis in the social sciences and public policy. Perfect as an undergraduate text or self-study manual, it emphasises how to understand concepts, interpret algorithms and formulas, analyse data, and answer research questions.

This brand new edition offers examples and visualisations using real-life data, a revised discussion of statistical inference, and introductory examples in Stata, SPSS, and R. The third edition has been extensively reorganised with shorter chapters and closer links between concepts and formulas, while retaining useful pedagogical features including key terms, practice exercises, a math refresher, and playful inserts on 'the mathematical imagination.' The Joy of Stats also places a strong emphasis on learning how to write and speak clearly about data results. Supported by a companion website with data sets and additional resources, TheJoy of Stats is a superb choice for introducing students to applied statistics and for refreshing and reviewing stats as a social scientist, public policy professional, or community activist.

List of Figures and Tables
Preface

Part One: Getting Started
1. Thinking about Numbers
2. Variables

Part Two: Describing Distributions
3. Describing Variable Distributions—First Steps
4. Measures of Central Tendency
5. Variability and Z-scores

Part Three: Statistical Inference
6. Thinking about Statistical Inference
7. Doing Statistical Inference

Part Four: Relations Among Variables
8. Regression and Correlation
9. Comparing Means
10. Categorical Variables
11. Multiple Regression and Logistic Regression
12. Reading Research

Math Refresher
Charts for Distributions
Bibliography
Index

Roberta Garner is a professor in the Department of Sociology at DePaul University.

Michael Ash is a professor in the Department of Economics and School of Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

"Using many real-life examples, The Joy of Stats offers a simple, easy read for beginners in an introduction to social or applied statistics course. This new edition does a very good job using visualizations to explain and illustrate key concepts and is particularly suitable for undergraduate students.

"The Joy of Stats makes statistical content less mathematical and more practical. The third edition is updated with new illustrations of the concepts, more straightforward explanations of statistical terms in plain language, and new examples and exercises. It acts as a primer, offering a list of things you absolutely must know to be successful in stats."