What initially interested me in this book was its promise to show the reader how to use Excel for statistical analysis. In this respect, the book did not disappoint. What did disappoint, however, was how little advanced statistical analysis one can do with Excel. If you're new to statistics as I was, this may come as a surprise. If you assume Excel is as good as it gets for statistical analysis, well, you're wrong. That's where the book veers into Minitab.
Minitab is pure statistical software. It looks a lot like Excel, but is much more powerful where statistical analysis is concerned. If you want to do Advanced Statistics, then you need to invest in something like Minitab. There are other options, such as R, SAS, Matlab, etc. But this book chooses to focus on Minitab, probably because of its familiar interface and relatively low purchase price ($100).
I went ahead and took the plunge and obtained a copy of Minitab. This decision made the book much more valuable to me. As you get deeper into the book, many of the different analysis types can only be done (easily) with specialized software such as Minitab.
I completed the examples and exercises from start to finish and found the book to be very educational. You learn how to carry out the analysis, why you would want to do it, and how to interpret the results. What you do NOT get is mathematical justification for the analysis techniques. While this would be nice to have, I can see how it would seriously sidetrack the focus of this book (and triple its size). If you want to know, say, why Multiple Regression works or the theory behind ANOVA tables, then buy a textbook or go back to school. But if you want to simply learn how to perform statistical analysis using Minitab and Excel, this is a great book to start with.
One complaint/suggestion: it would be nice if the publisher provided a companion web site for the book where the reader could download the example and exercise data sets. If you want to follow along with an example or perform an exercise, you have to manually enter the data. To his credit, the author keeps most of the data sets small and manageable, but there are a few that are too unwieldy for manual entry. That's the reason for 4 stars instead of 5.
A final comment: I bought this book in the summer of 2008 to work through in preparation for starting a graduate program in statistics. I had no delusions it would put me ahead of my classmates or give me an edge. I was just looking for some exposure to advanced topics. After my first semester, in which I mainly studied linear models, I revisted the book and found it to be even more valuable. Where my graduate school classes focused on mathematical motivation of analysis, this book is about application and interpretation of analysis. Re-reading it after some graduate work helped pull together some of the major themes of statistical analysis and gave much needed meaning and context to what I had just learned.
If you're serious about advanced statistical analysis and willing to drop $100 on Minitab, then I highly recommend this book.
Author(s): Larry Stephens
Edition: 1
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Professional
Year: 2004
Language: English
Pages: 338
Tags: Математика;Теория вероятностей и математическая статистика;Математическая статистика;
Contents......Page 9
Preface......Page 13
I-1 Large Sample (n >30) Inferences About a Single Mean......Page 15
I-2 Small Sample Inferences About a Single Mean......Page 23
I-3 Large Sample Inferences About a Single Population Proportion......Page 27
I-4 Inferences About a Population Variance or Standard Deviation......Page 29
I-5 Using Excel and Minitab to Construct Normal, Student t, Chi-Square, and F Distribution Curves......Page 33
I-6 Exercises for Introduction......Page 39
I-7 Introduction Summary......Page 45
1-1 Inferential Statistics......Page 47
1-2 Comparing Two Population Means: Independent Samples......Page 48
1-3 Comparing Two Population Means: Paired Samples......Page 54
1-4 Comparing Two Population Percents: Independent Samples......Page 58
1-5 Comparing Two Population Variances......Page 59
1-6 Exercises for Chapter 1......Page 64
1-7 Chapter 1 Summary......Page 68
2-1 Designed Experiments......Page 71
2-2 The Completely Randomized Design......Page 75
2-3 The Randomized Complete Block Design......Page 87
2-4 Factorial Experiments......Page 94
2-5 Multiple Comparisons of Means......Page 110
2-6 Exercises for Chapter 2......Page 115
2-7 Chapter 2 Summary......Page 120
3-1 Probabilistic Models......Page 123
3-2 The Method of Least Squares......Page 127
3-3 Inferences About the Slope of the Regression Line......Page 133
3-4 The Coefficient of Correlation......Page 136
3-5 The Coefficient of Determination......Page 139
3-6 Using the Model for Estimation and Prediction......Page 142
3-7 Exercises for Chapter 3......Page 149
3-8 Chapter 3 Summary......Page 152
4-1 Multiple Regression Models......Page 155
4-2 The First-Order Model: Estimating and Interpreting the Parameters in the Model......Page 156
4-3 Inferences About the Parameters......Page 160
4-4 Checking the Overall Utility of a Model......Page 165
4-5 Using the Model for Estimation and Prediction......Page 166
4-6 Interaction Models......Page 168
4-7 Higher Order Models......Page 171
4-8 Qualitative (Dummy) Variable Models......Page 175
4-9 Models with Both Qualitative and Quantitative Variables......Page 181
4-10 Comparing Nested Models......Page 185
4-11 Stepwise Regression......Page 189
4-12 Exercises for Chapter 4......Page 196
4-13 Chapter 4 Summary......Page 201
5-1 Distribution-free Tests......Page 203
5-2 The Sign Test......Page 205
5-3 The Wilcoxon Rank Sum Test for Independent Samples......Page 208
5-4 The Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test for the Paired Difference Experiment......Page 215
5-5 The Kruskal–Wallis Test for a Completely Randomized Test......Page 220
5-6 The Friedman Test for a Randomized Block Design......Page 224
5-7 Spearman Rank Correlation Coefficient......Page 229
5-8 Exercises for Chapter 5......Page 234
5-9 Chapter 5 Summary......Page 239
6-1 Categorical Data and the Multinomial Experiment......Page 240
6-2 Chi-Squared Goodness-of-Fit Test......Page 242
6-3 Chi-Squared Test of a Contingency Table......Page 247
6-4 Exercises for Chapter 6......Page 251
6-5 Chapter 6 Summary......Page 255
Final Exams and Their Answers......Page 257
Solutions to Chapter Exercises......Page 311
Bibliography......Page 331
C......Page 333
H......Page 334
N......Page 335
S......Page 336
T......Page 337
W......Page 338
