Keeping the uniquely humorous and self-deprecating style that has made students across the world fall in love with Andy Field′s books, Discovering Statistics Using R takes students on a journey of statistical discovery using R, a free, flexible and dynamically changing software tool for data analysis that is becoming increasingly popular across the social and behavioural sciences throughout the world.
The journey begins by explaining basic statistical and research concepts before a guided tour of the R software environment. Next you discover the importance of exploring and graphing data, before moving onto statistical tests that are the foundations of the rest of the book (for example correlation and regression). You will then stride confidently into intermediate level analyses such as ANOVA, before ending your journey with advanced techniques such as MANOVA and multilevel models. Although there is enough theory to help you gain the necessary conceptual understanding of what you′re doing, the emphasis is on applying what you learn to playful and real-world examples that should make the experience more fun than you might expect.
Like its sister textbooks, Discovering Statistics Using R is written in an irreverent style and follows the same ground-breaking structure and pedagogical approach. The core material is augmented by a cast of characters to help the reader on their way, together with hundreds of examples, self-assessment tests to consolidate knowledge, and additional website material for those wanting to learn more.
Given this book′s accessibility, fun spirit, and use of bizarre real-world research it should be essential for anyone wanting to learn about statistics using the freely-available R software.
Andy Field is Professor of Quantitative Methods at the University of Sussex. He has published widely (100+ research papers, 29 book chapters, and 17 books in various editions) in the areas of child anxiety and psychological methods and statistics. His current research interests focus on barriers to learning mathematics and statistics.
He is internationally known as a statistics educator. He has written several widely used statistics textbooks including Discovering Statistics Using IBM SPSS Statistics (winner of the 2007 British Psychological Society book award), Discovering Statistics Using R, and An Adventure in Statistics (shortlisted for the British Psychological Society book award, 2017; British Book Design and Production Awards, primary, secondary and tertiary education category, 2016; and the Association of Learned & Professional Society Publishers Award for innovation in publishing, 2016), which teaches statistics through a fictional narrative and uses graphic novel elements. He has also written the adventr and discovr packages for the statistics software R that teach statistics and R through interactive tutorials.
His uncontrollable enthusiasm for teaching statistics to psychologists has led to teaching awards from the University of Sussex (2001, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019), the British Psychological Society (2006) and a prestigious UK National Teaching fellowship (2010).
He′s done the usual academic things: had grants, been on editorial boards, done lots of admin/service but he finds it tedious trying to remember this stuff. None of them matter anyway because in the unlikely event that you′ve ever heard of him it′ll be as the ′Stats book guy′. In his spare time, he plays the drums very noisily in a heavy metal band, and walks his cocker spaniel, both of which he finds therapeutic.
Jeremy Miles, RAND Corporation, USA.
Zoë Field, University of Sussex, UK
