Statistics

Fundamentals of Social Statistics by Adam J. McKee

This is my OER guide to very basic concepts of basic social statistics.  Note that this is not designed to be a comprehensive text for graduate students.  My bent is decidedly conceptual, and my goals tend toward intelligent consumerism rather than computational proficiency.  Rather than doing computations “by hand,” I focus on doing things in Excel or similar spreadsheet programs (e.g., Google Sheets).


This work is licensed under an Open Educational Resource-Quality Master Source (OER-QMS) License.

Open Education Resource--Quality Master Source License


Table of Contents

Preface

Section 1:  Basic Concepts

Section 1.1:  Statistics and the Social Sciences     [Learning Resources]

Section 1.2:  Basic Math Review     [Learning Resources]

Section 1.3:  Using Spreadsheets  [Learning Resources]

Section 1.4: Variables     [Learning Resources]

Section 1.5:  Scales of Measurement     [Learning Resources]

Chapter 2:  Collecting and Organizing Data

Section 2.1: Probability and Samples     [Learning Resources]

Section 2.2:  Nonprobability Sampling     [Learning Resources]

Section 2.3: Describing Data     [Learning Resources]

Section 2.4:  Percentages & Rates     [Learning Resources]

Section 2.5:  Frequency Distributions     [Learning Resources]

Chapter 3:  Describing Variables

Section 3.1:  Measures of Central Tendency     [Learning Resources]

Section 3.2:  Measures of Variability     [Learning Resources]

Section 3.3:  Standard Deviation     [Learning Resources]

Section 3.4:  The Normal Curve     [Learning Resources]

Section 3.5:  Percentiles and Standard Scores     [Learning Resources]

Chapter 4:  Exploring Relationships

Section 4.1:  Introduction to Effect Size     [Learning Resources]

Section 4.2:  Correlation     [Learning Resources]

Section 4.3: Multiple Correlations     [Learning Resources]

Section 4.4:  Linear Regression     [Learning Resources]

Section 4.5: Advanced Regression Models     [Learning Resources]

Chapter 5:  Hypothesis Testing

Section 5.1:  The Logic of Hypothesis Testing     [Learning Resources]

Section 5.2:  Decision Errors     [Learning Resources]

Section 5.3: Power     [Learning Resources]

Section 5.4: Assumptions     [Learning Resources]

Section 5.5: One-tailed vs. Two-tailed Tests     [Learning Resources]

Chapter 6: Testing Null Hypotheses

Section 6.1: Error and Confidence Intervals     [Learning Resources]

Section 6.2: t-Tests     [Learning Resources]

Section 6.3: Non-parametric Tests     [Learning Resources]

Section 6.4:  Significance and Correlations     [Learning Resources]

Section 6.5:  ANOVA Tests     [Learning Resources]

Chapter 7: Complex Models

Section 7.1: Multiple Regression    [Learning Resources]

Section 7.2: Factor Analysis     [Learning Resources]

Section 7.3:  Logistic Regression     [Learning Resources]

Section 7.4: ANCOVA     [Learning Resources]

Section 7.5: Structural Equation Models (SEMs)     [Learning Resources]

Appendix A:  Significance of Pearson’s r

Appendix B: Critical Values of ChChi-Square

Appendix C:  Critical Values for Student’s t 

Appendix D:  Critical Values of F (.05 Level)

Appendix E: Studentized Range Statistic (q)

Appendix F: Standard Normal Distribution Table

References


Last Modified:  08/18/2023