general

This is the leading introductory statistics book in the US. In response to the comment from the reader in southwest ILL, the use of the Z test instead of the t is NOT wrong. Many of the leading statistics textbooks use the exact same approach. This text has been carefully reviewed for correctness by statisticians before publication.

I had to teach using this text for the last two years (the text choice was not in my control). I thought the text was entirely too wordy and too trite at times. For example, the first of only two examples to illustrate a two-way ANOVA had the two factors sex and type of M&M color eaten, where the dependent variable was SAT score. Certainly a better first example could have been chosen for one of the more difficult concepts in the book. Also, formulae sometimes are glossed over rather than explained or derived. How is the confidence interval related to the hypothesis test? This is explained but not derived. A derivation is not beyond the scope of the text. Another glossed over concept is degrees of freedom.

Thus, after the first semester, I wrote my own lecture notes, and only used the text to assign homework problems (and that was only to help out the TA so she could easily grade them using the solutions manual). Some of the exercises also have ridiculous contexts. Most exercises are too easy, and a few are downright insulting to some students. I received poor reviews from good students on this text. Many other students claimed never to have opened the book. It was too wordy (and too heavy), boring, and "never got to the point", are some of the comments I received.

Otherwise, the text's chapters follow almost every other elementary stats text on the planet, with some exceptions like a chapter on process control and a chapter devoted to calculating confidence intervals and estimating sample size. I disagree with relegating "nonparametric" tests to the back of the book. In my courses, I integrated them in with the "parametric" tests.

I gave the text two stars for effort and for some good points (I really think it deserves about a 2.3). The general discussion of hypothesis testing prior to actually showing any test statistics is good. Also, the vignettes about real people using elementary statistics in their jobs is a nice edition. Finally, there is a plethora of resources on the text's web site, and one can order other resources from the publisher.

But, I don't think a serious student will appreciate this text.

I think this is a great textbook. I have been reviewing texts for an AP statistics course and have settled on this book as a middle ground between very basic texts and rigorous textbooks for math majors.

It is not intended for math majors. I don't understand why reviewers are criticizing it for it not being more rigorous.

It has enough depth for intro undergrad stats, yet is adaptable to lower levels so some of the boneheads I have in high school can comprehend.

Excellent explanations. Very readable. Decent problem sets.

I approve.