Introduction to Statistical Investigations

by Nathan Tintle, Beth L. Chance, George W. Cobb

"Introduction to Statistical Investigations" leads students to learn about the process of conducting statistical investigations from data collection, to exploring data, to statistical inference, to drawing appropriate conclusions. The text is designed for a one-semester introductory statistics course.It focuses on genuine research studies, active learning, and effective use of technology. Simulations and randomization tests introduce statistical inference, yielding a strong conceptual foundation that bridges students to theory-based inference approaches. Repetition allows students to see the logic and scope of inference. This implementation follows the GAISE recommendations endorsed by the American Statistical Association.

704 pages, Unbound

First published October 12, 2015

Reviews

[Andy Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this statistics textbook, the author focuses on the statistical method, repeatedly going through a series of six steps to analyze increasingly complex investigative questions. As a statistics teacher, I really appreciated the clear outline of the book, which I believe makes the statistical ideas clearer and easier to remember. Each section includes and explained example and an exploratory example (an example that students work through by answering a given series of questions interspersed with clarifications). This gives the instructor flexibility in their teaching approach.

The book stays away from calculations, which seems to be the trend in most introductory statistics courses, and uses online applets to help with calculations. As a result, the instructor can choose to incorporate other specific technologies (graphing calculator, Excel, Minicab, etc.) on their own, but the book simply explains how to use the online applets which are pretty easy to use in conjunction with the book.

While I haven't taught a class with this book yet, I am looking forward to getting my students involved in the investigations and having less lecture classes.