Meaningful Statistics

Introduces students to foundational concepts and demonstrates how statistics are an integral aspect of their everyday lives - from baseball batting averages to reports on the median cost of buying a home to the projected outcomes of an upcoming election.

The sixth edition of Meaningful Statistics introduces students to foundational concepts and demonstrates how statistics are an integral aspect of their everyday lives—from baseball batting averages to reports on the median cost of buying a home to the projected outcomes of an upcoming election. Each chapter begins with a question and scenario that is then explored through statistical concepts, demonstrating to students how research and statistics can help us to answer questions and solve problems. The opening chapter focuses on the process of collecting data and uses this information to explore whether multivitamins are a waste of money. Additional chapters explore linear regression and whether junk food is harmful to a child's IQ; normal distribution and the issue of a tie for Olympic downhill gold; confidence intervals and a simulation of the NBA draft lottery; and more. Students learn about descriptive measures for populations and samples; probability and random variables; and sampling distributions, with each concept corresponding to real-world examples. Closing chapters cover the testing of hypotheses, tests using the chi-square distribution; and inferences with two or more populations. For the sixth edition, exercises and examples have been updated throughout. Designed to bring key concepts to life, Meaningful Statistics is an ideal resource for courses in mathematics and statistics.