Statistical Analysis for Education and Psychology Researchers
التحليل الاحصائي للتعليم والباحثين في علم النفس
تأليف/ Ian S.Peers
الطبعة الثانية 2006
In writing this book I have particular readers in mind: Postgraduate research students or
researchers who do not have a mathematical or statistical background but who want to
understand and use statistics. This book provides an introduction to the use of statistical
tests and has three main aims. First, to help readers learn statistical concepts, to think
statistically and thereby become a more astute consumer of research papers and reports.
As consumers of research, they will want to understand statistics as they appear in other
researchers’ reports, theses and so on. The second aim is to enable potential producers of
statistics to become judicious users of them. Producers of statistics will need to choose
and apply appropriate statistical tests to a wide range of research problems typically
encountered by social science researchers. A further aim of this book is to help
researchers use statistical software effectively. The present-day researcher has a number
of sophisticated computer programmes available for data analysis. Examples of the SAS1
system programming language are used to show how data is entered into a proprietary
package and how this data is then analyzed. Printouts of results are illustrated with
interpretive comments and where appropriate suggestions for further analysis.
Put simply this book is intended to help non-mathematical researchers to understand
statistical ideas, to apply statistical thinking to research design, to choose and use
appropriate statistical procedures and to interpret their own or other researchers’ data
analysis. Those readers wishing simply to confirm an appropriate statistical procedure for
their research problems should refer directly to the fifth chapter in the book.
The approach adopted in this book is based on ten years’ experience of teaching
statistics to research students. My past students have been my most valuable critics and
my present students continue to be my guide as to what works and why. Based on their
evaluations this book is grounded on three general premises. To use statistics
appropriately one has to understand basic concepts of research design and probability.
Appropriate use requires judgment which develops with experience. There is no
substitute for practical use of statistics with real data for those seeking to enhance their
understanding and polish their skills of analysis and interpretation.
An understanding of key concepts can be obscured by unnecessary formulae and
accordingly these have been kept to a minimum, and where used are explained in full.
Statistical tests are introduced using description and examples from the literature of
Psychology and Education. Understanding is thereby facilitated by familiarity with the
general kinds of research questions and issues discussed. The text is judiciously
punctuated with questions that encourage reflection.
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