Discovering Statistics Using IBM SPSS Statistics, 4th Edition

I am NOT a math person by any means. I despise it most of the time (to the point of tears). However, this book has given me a connection and a new appreciation for math (in statistics form, anyway). The book is easily navigated and exceptionally written. It teaches you how to use SPSS in a fun, exciting, and witty way. I highly recommend this book to anyone who may need it to learn how to use SPSS. I had to have it for my grad school class, and I honestly fell in love with this book a bit. It's wonderful. Again, coming from a nonmath person. It made me laugh while teaching me what I needed to know. Please buy this over other books.

If you're look to understand statistics, this is the book for you! Field has hilarious examples and does a great job of clearly communicating concepts.

Good book but the book pictured is not the one you wlll receive. Not sure why they are misleading customers. It is a 4th edition but the international version. It appears to be just as good.

I'm a statistics tutor and a Master's student in psychology. This is my go-to primer for most of what I do in SPSS, and I usually recommend it to my students. I tell them that it's informative while actually being readable. It's endearing and entertaining, but usually very clear. The SPSS guides are terrifically helpful. You can tell that this author is someone who genuinely cares about student learning while also genuinely caring about correct (and ethical) use of statistics. There are occasionally topics that aren't covered in as much detail as I'd like, but it's generally just beyond the scope of the book. Definitely get this one; it'll be nearly everything you'll ever need. Also, there are pictures of cats.

This has been a great stats text book, even if the author is a bit facetious sometimes...:)

Book arrived in condition expected

I'm impressed that the author has dedicated so much of his professional career to writing this book and updates it every four (I think he said four) years. We are told not to worry if the publication date of the book is a few years behind or ahead of the version of SPSS that you are using as each year the updates are not that significant. When SPSS first came out, it was its own company and I only recently learned that it was bought out by IBM. It was so cost prohibitive to buy, the only way I could have access to it was at school or work. There was a student version but it limited you to the number of cases you could enter into the software. Now it is so cheap to buy, I don't know why anyone would want to do statistics on Excell. SPSS is a really easy software program to use if you understand statistics. (I had to learn it in the old days when there was no Windows interface and had to learn coding to do my data runs!). Back in the day before IBM bought it, the software came with a ton of manuals. There was a whole cottage industry of people who would offer seminars that would cost up to $1,000.00 to teach you how to use the software that came with manuals and disks with practice exercises. I'm pretty sure this book probably put that whole industry out of business. I could only afford to take those classes if my company paid for it and I almost always had to fly to some other location to get the classes I needed that covered stuff I didn't learn in college. So compared to ten years ago, being able to have access to a book like this is unbelievably awesome! It saves you time and money and its very well written and you have to be able to trust the fact that its published by SAGE which publishes a large series of handbooks on a large number of statistical methods which were considered the gold standard but written in a very technical language. The biggest problem I have with the book is that its just too wordy. There is a lot of story telling in this book which is very time consuming to get through. Eventually you just learn how to skim over the long winded stories and start highlighting the areas where the author gets to the main point. Also, I know he is trying to be funny and appeal to college kids but I really don't think mentioning a study on the use of coke as a spermicide was something that added any value to the book. So if you are a student just learning how to use SPSS, consider yourself lucky to own this but if you are a busy working professional, this might not be your best option. There are online videos now at a website called Lynda that can walk you through the software and get you up to speed very quickly but you won't get the rich details found in the book.

nice book! only if it was colorful.

Libro fantastico! La statistica viene insegnata in modo diverso...peccato non ci sia la traduzione italiana ...alrimenti potrebbe essere adottato nel percorso prelauream...

A must have for any student (or professional) who has always felt confused by statistics! This is the quintessential manual on how to use SPSS and Andy Field’s explanation of statistics is the easiest to follow. You’ll be taken step-by-step through the entire process of using SPSS (something that no other book does as well as this one). The explanations are detailed and he includes many pictures and examples to illustrate his point.

In this book there is absolutely everything I have always needed to know about statistics and SPSS. It's extremely well written, examples are funny and easy to understand. It guides you through every step of the process, from choosing the statistics, to conducting it, interpreting it and reporting the results. I totally recommend it.

Ideal for researchers that need to master quantitative methods without being statisticians... Super funny as well, Andy is hilarious! i haven't finished reading the book yet, but i can't seem to find a chapter on cluster analysis.. It would be nice to have one in the next edition :)

nachdem ich schon viel von diesem Buch gehört habe (von Dozenten, Studenten, Tutoren), hab ich mir diese neue Ausgabe hier zugelegt und bin sehr begeistert! Ich muss mich für die Prüfung in Multivariate vorbereiten und außer der Clusteranalyse (über die der Herr Field auch eine kurze Einführung geschrieben hat, die man leicht im Internet findet), ist eigentlich alles drin, was man braucht. Im Vergleich zur alten Ausgabe (die noch bei uns im Hiwizimmer lag), sind die Grafiken jetzt bunt und sehr schick - alles wirkt viel moderner und v.a. sind einige wichtige Erweiterungen (z.B. Mediator- und Moderatoranalyse) enthalten. Das Englisch ist wirklich super zu verstehen - es liest sich fließend, v.a. wenn man vom Studium schon das ein oder andere englische Paper gewohnt ist. Mit viel Humor und Ironie (die auch mal gegen sich selbst gerichtet sind), führt Andy Field durch die oft verwirrenden Themen d. Statistik und zeigt in jedem Kapitel, das im Prinzip alle Analysen auf ein und dasselbe Lineare Modell zurückzuführen sind. Damit ist unser (wirklich engagierter, aber didaktisch leider wenig hilfespendender Professor) auch erst jetzt im Masterstudium herausgerückt - schaffte es aber leider nicht so klar und z.T. unterhaltsam herüberzubringen, wie der Herr Field hier. Auch wenn die regelmäßig auftauchenden Comic-Figuren (allen voran Brian, der versucht das Statistik-Genie Jane zu beeindrucken, indem er alles über Statistik lernt) wohl nicht für jeden etwas sind, verleihen sie dem ganzen Thema doch einen zwangloseren Geschmack, strukturieren die Kapitel (liefern z.B. Zusammenfassungen o. SPSS-Tipps) und sind manchmal einfach ganz nett, um das Gehirn etwas zu entspannen ;-) Deshalb klare Empfehlung an alle, die Statistik wirklich mal verstehen wollen: kaufen! ;-)