Statistical Methods for the Social Sciences - Hardcover

"This text is readable, understandable, and well-organized. It provides good examples with SPSS output." (Robert Wilson, University of Delaware). "Overall, [Agresti/ Finlay] is a good book for introductory statistics that targets general audiences...it covers most topics you want to cover and allows the instructor to choose which topics to include." (Youqin Huang, State University of New York, Albany) "I originally started using the Agresti/ Finlay book based on its reputation as "the class of the market", in terms of being unfailingly statistically correct and having a "modern" perspective. By "modern", I mean that it is model rather than test oriented, that it gives heavy emphasis to confidence intervals and p-values rather than using arbitrary levels of significance, and that it eschews computational formulae. It has met those expectations..." (Michael Lacey, Colorado State University) "..the book has been a good and helpful resource for me in preparing the class notes and assigning homework qustions. The main concepts to be understood by students are sampling distribution, confidence interval, p-value, linear regression. The book helps in this..." (Arne Bathke, University of Kentucky)

The book presents an introduction to statistical methods for students majoring in social science disciplines. No previous knowledge of statistics is assumed, and mathematical background is assumed to be minimal (lowest-level high-school algebra). The book contains sufficient material for a two-semester sequence of courses. Such sequences are commonly required of social science graduate students in sociology, political science, and psychology. Students in geography, anthropology, journalism, and speech also are sometimes required to take at least one statistics course.