1.      Resources for Learning Statistics

Hyperstat Online Statistics Textbook (http://www.davidmlane.com/hyperstat/index.html)

David Lane’s site, which presents one of the most basic and helpful of the numerous online statistics books, contains brief explanations of key concepts and many links to related resources.

Statistics Every Writer Should Know (http://www.robertniles.com/stats/)

Once described as “a simple guide to understanding basic statistics for journalists and other writers who might not know math,” this site explains several basic statistical concepts—e.g., measures of central tendency, standard deviation, bivariate regression, Student’s t—“in plain English.”

Pitfalls of Data Analysis (or How to Avoid Lies and Damned Lies) (http://my.execpc.com/~helberg/pitfalls/)

Presented at a conference on applied statistics, this paper outlines sources of bias, methodological errors, and problems of interpretation that often are overlooked in data analysis. The subtitle plays on quotation often attributed to Mark Twain: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

Interactive Statistics Education Package (http://webserv.jcu.edu/math//ISEP/ISEP.htm)

This site from the John Carroll University Department of Mathematics and Computer Science presents a series of interactive graphic demonstrations of basic statistical concepts, including mean, standard deviation, and linear regression. In the linear regression “lesson,” the user may see how the line of best fit and correlation coefficient change as one moves fifteen data points in a coordinate plane.

2.      Tutorials for Statistical Software Packages

Getting Started with SPSS for Windows (https://rt.uits.iu.edu/visualization/analytics/getting-started/spss-windows.pdf)

This web-based tutorial from the Pervasive Technology Institute at the Indiana is designed for beginning users of SPSS, one the most popular data analysis packages in the social sciences.

UCLA Institute for Digital Research and Education (http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/)

UCLA has put together a valuable web site on statistics, which includes numerous helpful resources for major software packages SAS, SPSS, and STATA. Click SPSS and then “Learning Modules” and you’ll find links with instructions for numerous aspects of data management such as inputting raw data, recoding variables, and handling missing data.

3.      Online Videos for Learning Basic Statistics

There are numerous videos on statistics. Below is a sample.

Introduction to Statistics (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMSyiAJm99g)

Introduction to Hypothesis Testing in Statistics (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VK-rnA3-41c)

Statistics 101: Simple Linear Regression, The Very Basics (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkjP5RJLQF4)

Statistics 101: Simple Linear Regression, The Least Squares Method (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qa2APhWjQPc

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