ABSTRACT

Psychological Statistics: The Basics walks the reader through the core logic of statistical inference and provides a solid grounding in the techniques necessary to understand modern statistical methods in the psychological and behavioral sciences.

This book is designed to be a readable account of the role of statistics in the psychological sciences. Rather than providing a comprehensive reference for statistical methods, Psychological Statistics: The Basics gives the reader an introduction to the core procedures of estimation and model comparison, both of which form the cornerstone of statistical inference in psychology and related fields. Instead of relying on statistical recipes, the book gives the reader the big picture and provides a seamless transition to more advanced methods, including Bayesian model comparison.

Psychological Statistics: The Basics not only serves as an excellent primer for beginners but it is also the perfect refresher for graduate students, early career psychologists, or anyone else interested in seeing the big picture of statistical inference. Concise and conversational, its highly readable tone will engage any reader who wants to learn the basics of psychological statistics.

chapter Chapter 1|7 pages

A (very) brief introduction to statistical inference

chapter Chapter 2|14 pages

Describing the observed data

chapter Chapter 3|13 pages

Modeling the observed data

chapter Chapter 4|14 pages

How likely is the observed data?

chapter Chapter 5|13 pages

Comparing statistical models

chapter Chapter 6|16 pages

Introduction to the t-test

chapter Chapter 7|14 pages

Bayesian model comparison

chapter Chapter 8|7 pages

Recap and next steps