Understanding Inferential Statistics (PDF)

What actually is a p-value for? And what is a significant result? This book answers such questions by providing a compact introduction to inferential statistics. Our major focus is on the logic of inferential statistics and hypothesis testing: We cover the logic behind statistical tests, we then walk through the most common procedures (t-test, analysis of variance with and without repeated measures, correlation/regression) and discuss pitfalls of data analysis. The book thus helps developing a solid understanding of how common test procedures work, and how to interpret their results correctly. Hands-on examples from everyday research - including exemplary calculations with the programs SPSS and R - supplement each chapter. In addition to classical methods, we briefly discuss recent developments in psychological research methods.

The authors

Markus Janczyk studied psychology at the Universities of Halle-Wittenberg and Reno (USA), earned his doctorate at TU Dortmund University, and completed his habilitation at Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg. He is currently a professor at the University of Bremen, where he heads the Research Methods and Cognitive Psychology Group. In his research, he is primarily interested in action control, multitasking, language, applied statistics, and cognitive modeling.