Stymied by statistics? No fear? this friendly guide offers clear, practical explanations of statistical ideas, techniques, formulas, and calculations, with lots of examples that show you how these concepts apply to your everyday life.

Statistics For Dummies shows you how to interpret and critique graphs and charts, determine the odds with probability, guesstimate with confidence using confidence intervals, set up and carry out a hypothesis test, compute statistical formulas, and more.

• Tracks to a typical first semester statistics course
• Updated examples resonate with today's students
• Explanations mirror teaching methods and classroom protocol

Packed with practical advice and real-world problems, Statistics For Dummies gives you everything you need to analyze and interpret data for improved classroom or on-the-job performance.

Deborah J. Rumsey, PhD, is Professor of Statistics and Statistics Education Specialist at The Ohio State University. She is the author of Statistics Workbook For Dummies, Statistics II For Dummies, and Probability For Dummies.

Introduction 1

Part 1: Vital Statistics about Statistics 7

CHAPTER 1: Statistics in a Nutshell 9

CHAPTER 2: The Statistics of Everyday Life 23

CHAPTER 3: Taking Control: So Many Numbers, So Little Time 35

CHAPTER 4: Tools of the Trade 47

Part 2: Number-Crunching Basics 69

CHAPTER 5: Means, Medians, and More 71

CHAPTER 6: Getting the Picture: Graphing Categorical Data 95

CHAPTER 7: Going by the Numbers: Graphing Numerical Data 107

Part 3: Distributions and the Central Limit Theorem 133

CHAPTER 8: Random Variables and the Binomial Distribution 135

CHAPTER 9: The Normal Distribution 149

CHAPTER 10: The t-Distribution 165

CHAPTER 11: Sampling Distributions and the Central Limit Theorem 171

Part 4: Guesstimating and Hypothesizing with Confidence 187

CHAPTER 12: Leaving Room for a Margin of Error 189

CHAPTER 13: Confidence Intervals: Making Your Best Guesstimate 201

CHAPTER 14: Claims, Tests, and Conclusions 223

CHAPTER 15: Commonly Used Hypothesis Tests: Formulas and Examples 237

Part 5: Statistical Studies and the Hunt for a Meaningful Relationship 255

CHAPTER 16: Polls, Polls, and More Polls 257

CHAPTER 17: Experiments: Medical Breakthroughs or Misleading Results? 275

CHAPTER 18: Looking for Links: Correlation and Regression 293

CHAPTER 19: Two-Way Tables and Independence 311

Part 6: The Part of Tens 333

CHAPTER 20: Ten Tips for the Statistically Savvy Sleuth 335

CHAPTER 21: Ten Surefire Exam Score Boosters 349

Appendix: Tables for Reference 365

Index 375