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Examination materials for instructors
Thank you for considering Exploring Statistics: Tales of Distributions as a textbook for your class. Tales has a narrative writing style that engages students and faculty alike. Peer-reviewed by more than 90 statistics teachers, Exploring Statistics is a mature, well-tested textbook.
To help with your decision, you can request examination copies of Exploring Statistics: Tales of Distributions materials.
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13th edition ebook: Request Examination Copy
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12th edition ebook: Request Examination Copy
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Print book (2 – 4 day delivery; 12th and 13th editions): Request print book
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Access to online Study Guide (12th and 13th editions; available through this site)
Once you have adopted Exploring Statistics we are happy to provide:
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12th edition: Test Bank & PowerPoint Slides
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13th edition: Test Bank, PowerPoint Slides, & jamovi workbook
You may request these supplemental materials by emailing info@outcroppublishers.com.
Gratis copies of books and supplementary materials may not be sold or transferred to a third party.
Outcrop Publishers supplies collegiate bookstores with print copies in the conventional manner. Ebooks can be adopted directly through VitalSource by bookstores or students. Students can also purchase the print book and access the Study Guide through this site.
About Exploring Statistics
Exploring Statistics: Tales of Distributions is a textbook for a one-term statistics course in the social or behavioral sciences, education, or an allied health/nursing field. Its focus is conceptualization, understanding, and interpretation, rather than computation (though there is enough computation to help students understand how certain statistics work). While it includes elements that prepare students for additional statistics courses, it is designed to be comprehensible and complete for students who take only one statistics course. For example, basic research design is introduced so students can write meaningful interpretations of their analyses. In many places, the student is invited to stop and think or do a thought exercise. Some problems ask the student to decide which statistical technique is appropriate. In sum, this book’s approach is in tune with instructors who emphasize critical thinking in their course.
This textbook has been remarkably successful for more than 40 years. Students, professors, and reviewers have praised it. A common refrain is that the book has a conversational, narrative style that is engaging, especially for a statistics text, and that is still true for the 13th edition.
What sets Exploring Statistics: Tales of Distributions apart from other textbooks?
We believe that the clear, accessible tone of the book is one of its biggest strengths. To us, accessibility is about more than just the ability to understand the content, though, which is why we are committed to offering a high-quality textbook for a low prices ($50 print, $30 ebook with permanent access). By self-publishing this book, we are able to better manage our costs and pass those savings along to students. In addition, we are committed to serving our adopters by providing high-quality instructor resources, like full slide decks and an editable jamovi workbook. If ever you need additional support as an adopter of our book, send an email to info@outcroppublishers.com and one of the authors will get back to you quickly.
Other features we’ve been careful to keep and enhance that distinguish this book from others include the following:
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Data sets are approached with an attitude of exploration.
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Changes in statistical practice over the years are emphasized, especially the recent emphasis on effect sizes and confidence intervals.
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Criticism of null hypothesis significance testing (NHST) is explained.
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Examples and problems represent a variety of disciplines and everyday life.
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Many problems are based on actual studies rather than fabricated scenarios.
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Interpretation is emphasized throughout.
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Problems are interspersed within a chapter, not grouped at the end.
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Answers to all problems are included.
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Answers are comprehensively explained—over 50 pages of detail.
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A final chapter, Choosing Tests and Writing Interpretations, serves as a review with a host of comprehensive questions.
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Effect size indices are treated as important descriptive statistics.
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Important words and phrases are defined in the margin when they first occur.
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Objectives, which open each chapter, serve first for orientation and later as review items.
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Key Terms are identified for each chapter.
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On the Horizons alert students to concepts that come up again.
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Tripping Hazards tell ways to detect mistakes or prevent them.
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Transition Passages alert students to a change in focus in chapters that follow.
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Comprehensive Problems, now called Summit Problems, encompass all (or most) of the techniques in a chapter.
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What Path Should You Take? problems require choices from among techniques in several chapters.
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A comprehensive, interactive, online study guide.
Exploring Statistics: Tales of Distributions
(13th edition)
Brief Table of Contents
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Introduction
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Exploring Data: Frequency Distributions and Graphs
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Exploring Data: Central Tendency
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Exploring Data: Variability
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Other Descriptive Statistics
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Correlation and Regression
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Theoretical Distributions Including the Normal Distribution
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Samples, Sampling Distributions, and Confidence Intervals
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One-Sample Designs: NHST, Effect Size, and Confidence Intervals
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Two-Sample Designs: NHST, Effect Size, and Confidence Intervals
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Analysis of Variance: Independent Samples
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Analysis of Variance: Repeated Measures
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Two-Way Independent Analysis of Variance
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Chi Square Tests
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More Nonparametric Tests
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Choosing Tests and Writing Interpretations
Appendixes
A. Getting Started
B. Grouped Frequency Distributions and Central Tendency
C. Tables
D. Glossary of Words
E. Glossary of Symbols
F. Glossary of Formulas
G. Answers to Problems
H. Past, Present, and Future of NHST
References
Index
What's new in the 13th edition?
For this 13th edition, the biggest change is the addition of the voices and experience of three new authors, adding 54 years of combined experience teaching statistics to Spatz’s many. Almost all of our teaching statistics experience has been with the Exploring Statistics textbook. We’ve worked hard to maintain all of the good qualities of Exploring Statistics while updating and revising what we thought could be even better. Specifically, some of the major changes include:
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The online study guide is still just as comprehensive and interactive; but it is now available for free on our website: https://exploringstatistics.com/studyguide.php
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The addition of statistical output and interpretation of this output in most chapters from an open-source software program, jamovi, as a supplement to the step-by-step clear hand-calculations.
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The addition of a hiking journey theme, used to frame and guide students’ movement through the challenging conceptual terrain that introductory statistics courses provide. The theme includes Tripping Hazards to identify common mistakes and concerns; Trail Tips which provide additional guidance for success at key points, and On the Horizons to preview material to come.
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The addition of a new appendix that summarizes the historical development of NHST, with a focus on the controversies surrounding the process and what students can do in their own work to address the concerns critics have raised.
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Reorganization of the introduction to NHST in Chapters 9 and 10 to help students better understand this difficult concept.
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Additional emphasis on how to write good interpretations of analyses in scientific style. u Updated and additional problems.
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Effect size index revisions including
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For ANOVA, replacing f with η and η
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Addition of effect size calculation and interpretation to the one factor repeated-measures ANOVA chapter
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Addition of Cramér’s phi for chi-square tests with larger than 2 × 2 tables
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Addition of effect size indices to all nonparametric tests in Chapter 15.
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Replacing the Wilcoxon-Wilcox multiple comparison’s test with a Kruskal-Wallis and Dunn’s Test analysis for nonparametric equivalents to a one-way ANOVA and Tukey HSD Tests.
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More fully developed instructors’ resources including
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An editable jamovi workbook that provides step-by-step guidance on conducting analyses in jamovi, along with additional jamovi-based practice problems, that can be integrated into the course according to instructor preference.
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A full set of classroom lecture slides.
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An edited, comprehensive test bank.
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Praise from professors
“I used your textbook this year and plan to use it again next year. It has been incredibly helpful.” Denny Vowell - Williams Baptist University “Your GREAT text will be my permanent required one for my summer and coming fall stat courses.” Se-Kang Kim - Fordham University “…is the first book I have encountered that I feel really teaches the reader to understand statistics at a conceptual level…” Jeremy Shelton - Lamar University “Nothing is as conversational and easy for students to navigate. Every semester I have students who ask why all math books can't be written in the same style.” Jessica Alexander – Centenary College "Best I have ever used and my students appreciate it." Dan Calcagnetti – Fairleigh Dickinson University "It's the best on the market." Bob Hayes, Westfield State University "I have used your text since the second edition. I have always valued the clarity of your writing." Gary Byrd – West Texas A & M University "I absolutely love this textbook. It's the only textbook I've ever used that students genuinely like. It's like they are having a conversation with the author." Lisa Carlstrom – Modesto Junior College "Thank you for writing the book that set me on my career." Paul Bernhardt – Frostburg State University "Students have commented that they really like the book and found it easy to follow." Kristi Lekies – The Ohio State University "Tales is highly readable, simple, straightforward, and unpretentious, unlike many others that I've read." Jill Schmidlkofer – Career Statistician "Many thanks for all your work in producing a truly outstanding statistics book." Casey Cole – Missouri Southern State University "... my stats sections usually closed in a few minutes and I attribute much of that popularity to the effectiveness of your book... Thanks for a great book!" Richard Deyo – Winona State University "…a bit of praise, this is the best textbook for my students about statistics." Don Edgar – New Mexico State University "I found your text to be complete, yet succinct and very understandable." Robert Lloyd – University of Minnesota, Duluth "I … want to offer my gratitude for your work. It has made teaching the course more of a pleasure to me and my students." Keith Pannell – El Paso Community College "Thanks for providing behavioral science students with a readable, practical textbook on the subject." Barry Vann – Colorado Christian University