Research Design and Statistical Analysis

This volume provides an extensive treatment of important inferential concepts, experimental designs and related analyses, and regression and correlation analyses. Emphasizing such basic concepts as sampling distributions, expected mean squares, design efficiency, and statistical models, the authors detail the assumptions underlying statistical procedures, the consequences of their violations, methods for detecting those violations, and alternative methods in the face of severe violations. Written for researchers engaged in experimentation and those who conduct observational studies, this volume treats both analysis of variance and regression analysis, and relates the two. And because the assumptions underlying such procedures are often not met by the researcher's data, nonparametric methods are also set forth. Features include:

* comprehensive coverage that provides the reader with an understanding of the appropriate statistical analyses for many of the research designs that are likely to be encountered;
* emphasis on underlying concepts rather than on computations -- to promote understanding and enable the reader to generalize new applications;
* a bottom-up organization that provides concrete examples and intuitive arguments before going into more complex explanations -- to give readers overviews of major topics that encourage understanding;
* extensive sets of exercises at the ends of chapters and answers to selected exercises to allow readers to test understanding of concepts as well as the ability to perform calculations;
* the development of the basic ideas of multiple regression analysis without using matrix algebra plus an optional section that illustrates the power of the matrix approach -- to make regression analysis accessible to a wide audience; and
* discussions of available computer statistical packages, examples of outputs and an appendix about the control information for running the statistical programs -- to help researchers select a computer package and interpret the output.