Introduction to Statistics in the Psychological Sciences provides an accessible introduction to the fundamentals of statistics, and hypothesis testing as need for psychology students. The textbook introduces the fundamentals of statistics, an introduction to hypothesis testing, and t Tests. Related samples, independent samples, analysis of variance, correlations, linear regressions and chi-squares are all covered along with expanded appendices with z, t, F correlation, and a Chi-Square table. The text includes key terms and exercises with answers to odd-numbered exercises.

Psychology students often find statistics courses to be different from their other psychology classes. There are some distinct differences, especially involving study strategies for class success. The first difference is learning a new vocabulary—it is similar to learning a new language. Knowing the meaning of certain words will help as you are reading the material and working through the problems. Secondly, practice is critical for success; reading over the material is not enough. Statistics is a subject learned by doing, so make sure you work through any homework questions, chapter questions, and practice problems available. Statistical knowledge gives you a set of skills employable in graduate school and the workplace. Data science is a burgeoning field, and there is practical significance in learning this material. The statistics presented in this book are some of the most common ones used in research articles, and we hope by the end of this OER you’ll feel comfortable reading (and not skipping!) the results section of an article. This work is broken into 14 chapters, covering the fundamentals of statistics, and hypothesis testing.

This work was created as part of the University Libraries’ Open Educational Resources Initiative at the University of Missouri–St. Louis.

A web version of this text can be found at https://umsystem.pressbooks.pub/isps/.

The contents of this work have been adapted from the following Open Access Resources:

• An Introduction to Psychological Statistics (https://irl.umsl.edu/oer/4/). Garett C. Foster, University of Missouri–St. Louis.
• Online Statistics Education: A Multimedia Course of Study (http://onlinestatbook.com/). Project Leader: David M. Lane, Rice University.

Changes to the original works were made by Dr. Linda R. Cote, Professor of Psychology, Marymount University, Arlington, Virginia; Dr. Rupa G. Gordon, Associate Professor of Psychology, Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois; Dr. Chrislyn E. Randell, Professor of Psychology, Metropolitan State University of Denver, Denver, Colorado; Judy Schmitt, Reference Librarian, University of Missouri–St. Louis; and Helena Marvin, Reference Librarian, University of Missouri–St. Louis. Materials from the original sources have been combined, reorganized, and added to by the current authors, and any conceptual, mathematical, or typographical errors are the responsibility of the current authors.

Minor revisions made and uploaded 8/01/2023.

Cover image: “A Crushing Decision” by Lew (tomswift) Holzman/Flickr is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

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