ABSTRACT
Having introduced the area of statistics within its research context in Chapter 1, the purpose of this chapter is to give the reader specific advice on how to use this book. This chapter comes in two parts. The first part discusses how the book should be used within different modules by readers. This book is a reference book and it is anticipated that many readers will target specific parts of the book that support their needs. This is the case for academic staff in universities as well as students. The book covers a range of areas from descriptive statistics to multivariate analysis methods. This does make it unlikely that the whole of the book would support one single module. Certainly, the author would not recommend a single module to cover all of these areas at his own university. The second part discusses the terminology and notation used within the book. In particular, the notation used to describe the use of the SPSS interface, its menu structure and pop-up windows are outlined in this chapter. Occasionally, the book uses equations where they help explain statistical concepts. The second part of the chapter also includes a brief description of equation notation used to assist readers.
