Donncha Hanna - Psychology Statistics for Dummies

Psychology Statistics For Dummies

by Donncha Hanna and Martin Dempster

Psychology Statistics For Dummies

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data: A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-119-95287-9 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-95393-7 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-119-95394-4 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-119-95395-1 (ebk)

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International, Padstow, Cornwall.

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About the Authors

Donncha Hanna is, among other more interesting things, a lecturer at the School of Psychology, Queens University Belfast.

He has been teaching statistics to undergraduate students, postgraduate students and real professional people for over 10 years (he is not as old as Martin). His research focuses on mental health and the reasons why students do not like statistics; these topics are not necessarily related. He attempts to teach statistics in an accessible and easy to understand way without dumbing down the content; maybe one day he will succeed.

Donncha lives in Belfast with two fruit bats, a hedgehog and a human named Pamela.

Martin Dempster is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Psychology, Queens University Belfast. He is a Health Psychologist and Chartered Statistician who has also authored A Research Guide for Health & Clinical Psychology.

He has been teaching statistics to undergraduate psychology students for over 20 years. As a psychologist he is interested in the adverse reaction that psychology students often have to learning statistics and endeavours to work out what causes this (hopefully not him) and how it can be alleviated. He tries to teach statistics in an accessible manner (which isnt always easy).

Martin lives in Whitehead, a seaside village in Co. Antrim, Northern Ireland, which isnt very well-known, which is why he lives there.

Dedication

From Donncha: For my mother and father. Thank you for everything.

From Martin: For Tom, who joined the world half way through the development of this book and has been a glorious distraction ever since.

Authors Acknowledgments

From Donncha: Im very grateful to the team at Dummies Towers for their work and guidance in getting this book to print particularly our editors Simon Bell and Mike Baker.

I would like to thank all the students, colleagues and teachers who have helped shape my thinking and knowledge about statistics (and apologise if I have stolen any of their ideas!). I must also acknowledge Pamela (who didnt complain when I used the excuse of writing this book to avoid doing the dishes) and my sister, Aideen, who offered practical help as always. Thanks to my friend and colleague Martin Dorahy who put up with me in New Zealand where half of this book was written. And of course to Martin Dempster, without whom there would be no book.

From Martin: This book is the product of at least 20 years of interaction with colleagues and students; picking up their ideas; answering their questions; and being stimulated into thinking about different ways of explaining statistical concepts. Therefore, there are many people to thank too many too list and certainly too many for me to remember (any more).

However, there are a few people who made contributions to the actual content of this book. My brother, Bob, who has a much better sense of humour than me, helped with some of the examples in the book. Noleen helped me to better formulate my thinking when I was having some difficulty and supported my decision to undertake this project in the first place. My mum and dad spurred me on with their ever-present encouragement. Finally, thanks to my colleague Donncha, who floated the idea of writing this book and asked me to collaborate with him on its development.