How to Make Sense of Statistics

Stephen Gorard is Professor of Education and Public Policy, and Director of the Evidence Centre for Education, at Durham University (https://www.dur.ac.uk/). He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, member of the ESRC Commissioning Panel for the Research Methods Programme, the British Academy grants panel, and Lead Editor for BERA's Review of Education. He is a member of the Cabinet Office Trials Advice Panel as part of the Prime Minister's Implementation Unit. His work concerns the robust evaluation of education as a lifelong process, focused on issues of equity, especially regarding school intakes. He is author of around 30 books and over 1,000 other publications. He is currently funded by Nesta to evaluate their EdTech Testbed, and by the British Academy to look at the impact of schooling in India and Pakistan.

Part I: Introduction Chapter 1: Why we use numbers in research Chapter 2: What is a number?: Issues of measurement Part II: Basic analyses Chapter 3: Working with one variable Chapter 4: Working with tables of categorical variables Chapter 5: Examining differences between real numbers Chapter 6: Significance tests: how to conduct them and what they do not mean Chapter 7: Significance tests: why we should not report them Part III: Advanced issues for analysis Chapter 8: The role of judgement in analysis Chapter 9: Research designs Chapter 10: Sampling and populations Chapter 11: What is randomness? Chapter 12: Handling missing data: The importance of what we don't know Chapter 13: Handling missing data: more complex issues Part IV: Modelling with data Chapter 14: Errors in measurements Chapter 15: Correlating two real numbers Chapter 16: Predicting measurements using simple linear regression Chapter 17: Predicting measurements using multiple linear regression Chapter 18: Assumptions and limitations in regression Chapter 19: Predicting outcomes using logistic regression Chapter 20: Data reduction techniques Part V: Conclusion Chapter 21: Presenting data for your audience

This book takes beginner students hand-in-hand through a journey in the world of statistics without dumbing down the concepts, just making them very accessible. It teaches the basics (and beyond) by stimulating critical thinking. -- Luana Russo