Statistics for the Terrified Criminologist is a user-friendly introduction to elementary statistics, intended primarily for the reluctant, math-anxious/avoidant criminology student. Written in a personal and informal style, with healthy doses of humor and encouragement, the aim of this book is to help readers make the leap from apprehension to comprehension of elementary statistics. Statistics for the Terrified Criminologist includes step-by-step instructions on how to run basic statistical tests in SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) and is intended to serve as a comprehensive text for criminology courses in statistics and research methods; as a refresher for criminology students who have already taken a statistics course; and as a primer for new students of elementary statistics. Millions of people have math anxiety; yet this fact is rarely taken into consideration in textbooks on statistics. This book also presents self-help strategies (based on the cognitive behavioral techniques of rational emotive therapy) that help people manage their math anxiety so they can relax and build confidence while learning statistics. Statistics for the Terrified Criminologist makes statistics accessible to people by helping them manage their anxiety and presenting them with other essential materials for learning statistics before jumping into statistics.
Preface Acknowledgments Section I Essentials for Statistics 1 Effective Strategies for Studying Statistics Self-assessment Assumptions about the Reader Effective Strategies for Studying Statistics 2 Overcoming Math Anxiety What Causes Math Anxiety? Overview of Rational Emotive Therapy Irrational Beliefs How to Deal with Math Anxiety 3 How to Use SPSS What is SPSS? Starting SPSS Basic Steps in SPSS Data Analysis Entering Data Selecting an Analysis Running an Analysis and Examining Results Finding Help in SPSS Section II Describing Univariate Data 4 Frequency Distributions What are statistics? Variables Levels of Measurement Frequency Distributions Grouped Frequency Distributions Graphing Data Frequency Polygon Histogram Cumulative Frequency Polygon Normal Curve Skewed and Multimodal Distributions Problems Answers to Problems 5 Descriptive Statistics What are statistics? Measures of Central Tendency Selecting a Measure of Central Tendency Measures of variability Problems Answers to Problems 6 The Normal Curve What is the Normal Curve? The Normal Curve as a Model Proportions of Scores Under the Normal Curve Problems Answers to Problems 7 Percentiles and Standard Scores Percentiles Standard Scores (Z score) Other Standard Scores T Scores Converting Standard Scores to Percentiles A Word of Warning Problems Answers to Problems Section III Inferential Statistics 8 Introduction to Inferential Statistics Probability The Sampling Experiment Sample Values (Statistics) and Population Values (Parameters) The Null Hypothesis Type I and Type II Errors Statistical Significance and Type I Error Effect Size and Power Problems Answers to Problems 9 The t Test The t Test for Independent Samples Assumptions for Using the t Test for Independent Samples Formula for the t Test for Independent Samples The Critical Value of t: tcrit Effect Size for the t Test for Independent Samples The t Test for Dependent (Matched/Paired) Samples Directional Versus Nondirectional Tests Problems Answers to Problems 10 Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) Analysis of Variance Assumptions for using ANOVA Conducting an ANOVA in SPSS Strength of Association Post hoc Analysis The Scheffe Method of Post-Hoc Analysis Problems Answers to Problems 11 Nonparametric Statistics: Chi-square Nonparametric Statistical Tests The One-way Test of Chi-square () The Two-way Test of Chi-square () Effect Size for Chi-Square Tests of Independence A Bit More Problems Answers to Problems Section IV Correlation Coefficients and Linear Regression 12 Correlation Coefficients Correlation Coefficients Pearson Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient Interpreting Correlation Coefficients Sources of Misleading Correlation Coefficients Creating a Scatterplot Other Methods of Correlation Spearman Rank Correlation Coefficient Problems Answers to Problems 13 Linear Regression Regression Equations Standard Error of the Estimate Problems Answers to Problems 14 Postscript Congratulations! Review of Book Appendices A Basic Math Review B Proportions of Area Under the Standard Normal Curve C Critical Values of t D Glossary of Formulas Index
