The fun and easy way to get down to business with statistics

Stymied by statistics? No fear? this friendly guide offers clear, practical explanations of statistical ideas, techniques, formulas, and calculations, with lots of examples that show you how these concepts apply to your everyday life.

Statistics For Dummies shows you how to interpret and critique graphs and charts, determine the odds with probability, guesstimate with confidence using confidence intervals, set up and carry out a hypothesis test, compute statistical formulas, and more.

* Tracks to a typical first semester statistics course

* Updated examples resonate with today's students

* Explanations mirror teaching methods and classroom protocol

Packed with practical advice and real-world problems, Statistics For Dummies gives you everything you need to analyze and interpret data for improved classroom or on-the-job performance.

Deborah J. Rumsey, PhD, is Professor of Statistics and Statistics Education Specialist at The Ohio State University. She is the author of Statistics Workbook For Dummies, Statistics II For Dummies, and Probability For Dummies.

Klappentext

• Grasp statistical ideas, formulas, and calculations
• Interpret graphs and polls and determine probability
• Analyze data using many techniques

The simple way to study statistics

Stymied by statistics? Fear not! In easy-to-understand terms, this guide shows you how to make sense of statistics. From collecting, graphing, and critiquing data to calculating confidence intervals and hypothesis tests, you'll have everything you need to analyze data with confidence. In no time, you'll be deciphering binomial, normal, t-, and sampling distributions; tackling regression and two-way tables; and much more.

Inside

• Plain-English definitions
• Understanding and critiquing polls
• Information on organizing data
• Explanations of random variables
• Facts about the Central Limit Theorem
• Data analysis tools

Stymied by statistics? No fear? this friendly guide offers clear, practical explanations of statistical ideas, techniques, formulas, and calculations, with lots of examples that show you how these concepts apply to your everyday life.

Statistics For Dummies shows you how to interpret and critique graphs and charts, determine the odds with probability, guesstimate with confidence using confidence intervals, set up and carry out a hypothesis test, compute statistical formulas, and more.

• Tracks to a typical first semester statistics course
• Updated examples resonate with today's students
• Explanations mirror teaching methods and classroom protocol

Packed with practical advice and real-world problems, Statistics For Dummies gives you everything you need to analyze and interpret data for improved classroom or on-the-job performance.

Introduction 1

About This Book 1

Conventions Used in This Book 2

What You're Not to Read 3

Foolish Assumptions 3

How This Book Is Organized 3

Part 1: Vital Statistics about Statistics 3

Part 2: Number-Crunching Basics 4

Part 3: Distributions and the Central Limit Theorem 4

Part 4: Guesstimating and Hypothesizing with Confidence 4

Part 5: Statistical Studies and the Hunt for a Meaningful Relationship 5

Part 6: The Part of Tens 5

Icons Used in This Book 6

Where to Go from Here 6

Part 1: Vital Statistics About Statistics 7

Chapter 1: Statistics in a Nutshell 9

Thriving in a Statistical World 10

Designing Appropriate Studies 11

Surveys 11

Experiments 12

Collecting Quality Data 13

Selecting a good sample 13

Avoiding bias in your data 14

Creating Effective Summaries 14

Descriptive statistics 15

Charts and graphs 15

Determining Distributions 16

Performing Proper Analyses 17

Margin of error and confidence intervals 18

Hypothesis tests 19

Correlation, regression, and two-way tables 20

Drawing Credible Conclusions 21

Reeling in overstated results 21

Questioning claims of cause and effect 21

Becoming a Sleuth, Not a Skeptic 22

Chapter 2: The Statistics of Everyday Life 23

Statistics and the Media: More Questions than Answers? 24

Probing popcorn problems 24

Venturing into viruses 24

Comprehending crashes 25

Mulling malpractice 26

Belaboring the loss of land 26

Scrutinizing schools 27

Studying sports 28

Banking on business news 28

Touring the travel news 29

Surveying sexual stats 29

Breaking down weather reports 30

Musing about movies 30

Highlighting horoscopes 31

Using Statistics at Work 31

Delivering babies and information 31

Posing for pictures 32

Poking through pizza data 32

Statistics in the office 33

Chapter 3: Taking Control: So Many Numbers, So Little Time 35

Detecting Errors, Exaggerations, and Just Plain Lies 36

Checking the math 36

Uncovering misleading statistics 37

Looking for lies in all the right places 44

Feeling the Impact of Misleading Statistics 44

Chapter 4: Tools of the Trade 47

Statistics: More than Just Numbers 47

Grabbing Some Basic Statistical Jargon 49

Data 50

Data set 51

Variable 51

Population 51

Sample, random, or otherwise 52

Statistic 54

Parameter 54

Bias 55

Mean (Average) 55

Median 56

Standard deviation 56

Percentile 57

Standard score 57

Distribution and normal distribution 58

Central Limit Theorem 59

z-values 60

Experiments 60

Surveys (Polls) 62

Margin of error 62

Confidence interval 63

Hypothesis testing 64

p-values 65

Statistical significance 66

Correlation versus causation 67

Part 2: Number-Crunching Basics 69

Chapter 5: Means, Medians, and More 71

Summing Up Data with Descriptive Statistics 71

Crunching Categorical Data: Tables and Percents 72

Measuring the Center with Mean and Median 75

Averaging out to the mean 75

Splitting your data down the median 77

Comparing means and medians: Histograms 78

Accounting for Variation 80

Reporting the standard deviation 81

Being out of range 84