Statistics: Informed Decisions Using Data (5th Edition)

Book Preface

Capturing a Powerful and Exciting Discipline in a Textbook

Statistics is a powerful subject, and it is one of my passions. Bringing my passion for the subject together with my desire to create a text that would work for me, my students, and my school led me to write the first edition of this textbook. It continues to motivate me as I reflect on changes in students, in the statistics community, and in the world around us.

When I started writing, I used the manuscript of this text in class. My students provided valuable, insightful feedback, and I made adjustments based on their comments. In many respects, this text was written by students and for students. I also received constructive feedback from a wide range of statistics faculty, which has refined ideas in the book and in my teaching. I continue to receive valuable feedback from both faculty and students, and this text continues to evolve with the goal of providing clear, concise, and readable explanations, while challenging students to think statistically.

In writing this edition, I continue to make a special effort to abide by the Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in Statistics Education (GAISE) for the college introductory course endorsed by the American Statistical Association
(ASA). The GAISE Report gives six recommendations for the course:

1. Emphasize statistical literacy and develop statistical thinking
2. Use real data in teaching statistics
3. Stress conceptual understanding
4. Foster active learning
5. Use technology for developing conceptual understanding
6. Use assessments to improve and evaluate student learning
Changes to this edition and the hallmark features of the text reflect a strong adherence to these important GAISE  guidelines.

Putting It Together

When students are learning statistics, often they struggle with seeing the big picture of how it all fits together. One of my goals is to help students learn not just the important concepts and methods of statistics but also how to put them together.

On the inside front cover, you’ll see a pathway that provides a guide for students as they navigate through the process of learning statistics. The features and chapter organization in the fifth edition reinforce this important process.

New to This Edition
– Over 350 New and Updated Exercises The fifth edition makes a concerted effort to require students to write a few sentences that explain the results of their statistical analysis. To reflect this effort, the answers in the back of the text provide recommended explanations of the statistical results. In addition, exercises have been written to require students to understand pitfalls in faulty statistical analysis.
– Over 100 New and Updated Examples The examples continue to engage and provide clear, concise explanations for the students while following the Problem, Approach, Solution presentation. Problem lays out the scenario of the example, Approach provides insight into the thought process behind the methodology used to solve the problem, and Solution goes through the solution utilizing the methodology suggested in the approach.
– Videos The suite of videos available with this edition has been extensively updated. Featuring the author and George Woodbury, there are both instructional videos that develop statistical concepts and example videos. Most example videos have both by-hand solutions and technology solutions (where applicable).

In addition, each Chapter Test problem has video solutions available.
– Retain Your Knowledge A new problem type. The Retain Your Knowledge problems occur periodically at the end of section exercises. These problems are meant to assist students in retaining skills learned earlier in the course so that the material is fresh for the final exam.
– Big Data Problems Data is ubiquitous today. The ability to collect data from a variety of sources has resulted in very large data sets. While analysis of data sets with tens of thousands of observations with thousands of variables is not practical at the introductory level, it is important for students to analyze data sets with more than fifty observations. These problems are marked with a icon and the data is available at www.pearsonhighered.com/ sullivanstats.
– Technology Help in MyStatLab Problems in MyStatLab that may be analyzed using statistical packages now have an updated technology help feature. Marked with a icon, this features provides step-by-step instructions on how to obtain results using StatCrunch, TI-84 Plus/TI-84 Plus C, and Excel.
– Instructor Resource Guide The Instructor Resource Guide provides an overview of the chapter. It also details points to emphasize within each section and suggestions for presenting the material. In addition, the guide provides examples that may be used in the classroom.