Practical Statistics for Educators

by Ruth Ravid

Practical Statistic for Educators, 6th Edition is a clear and easy-to-follow book written specifically for education students in introductory statistics and action research courses. It is also an invaluable resource and guidebook for educational practitioners who wish to study their own settings and for those involved in program evaluation. The focus of the book is on essential concepts in educational statistics, understanding when to use various statistical tests, and how to interpret results. This book introduces educational students and practitioners to the use of statistics in education and basic concepts in statistics are explained in clear language. All of the examples used to explain the use of statistics in educational research are taken from the field of education and serve to illustrate the various concepts, terms, statistical tests, and data interpretations that are discussed in the book. Formulas and equations are used sparingly and readers are not required to do any computations. The book also includes a discussion of testing, test score interpretation, reliability, and validity. A chapter on survey design and analysis provide the book readers with examples which demonstrate how the different statistical tests introduced in the book can be used to analyzed survey data. Chapter previews are provided, as well as succinct end-of-chapter summaries. The book’s glossary of main terms and concepts helps readers navigate the book and easily find useful information. Review exercises are included at the end of the book to allow readers to practice and apply their newly-acquired knowledge and skills.

Genres: Education

300 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 1, 2010

Reviews

[Catherine Norman]

A little dry. Some errors in the practice problems answer key, which was annoying for a non-stats lover. I'm sure I will refer back to this book, though.

[Leanna Aker · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great, conceptual introduction to statistics for educators, and provides a number of concrete examples to illustrate the concepts. The last chapter involves several situations for which you must select the right statistical test or measure. Each chapter has a nice summary of the main points in the chapter as well. Would highly recommend this as a jumping point into statistics.

[Ashley Bostrom · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can honestly say that I have a better understanding of statistics after reading this textbook. But Chapter 10: Analysis of Variance could use a serious rewrite. What do sentences like “The mean squares are found by dividing the sum of squares by the appropriate degrees of freedom” even mean??? Some things only make sense as equations.

[Emma Sonck · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a book required for my Ed.D. program.