Statistics, anyone?

[Da Blob]

I hated math classes my entire life, they were so slow. I can't tell you how peeved I was when I got to college and found that in 11 weeks they could teach the twelve years of Math I endured and prepare someone totally illiterate in math, to take Introductory Calculus the next semester...(!!!!)
Anyway I had heard horror stories about college and graduate level statistics classes so I was really surprised to discover that I like Statistics, I even took Advanced Statistics as an elective!
I think that Stats can be a subject that is both enjoyable and comprehensible, if one learns because of one's one initiative and at one's own pace. I think math is made much more difficult by being forced to learn at the pace set by an instructor. It is usually too slow to keep one interested, or it is too fast to keep up with... Anyway I might suggest that a few hours exploring Stat and some basic concepts can lay a foundation for an easier time with the subject in formal educational settings..

I have posted three online resources that I found particularly useful, as well as the bibliography from a paper I wrote on Stats. Others may wish to post additional resources as I was focused on Stats in the 'soft' sciences...

http://www.statsoft.com/textbook/Stathome.html

http://support.sas.com/learn/statlibrary/

http://www.longitudinal.stir.ac.uk/SPSS_support.html

Ferguson, G. A. & Takane, Y.(1989). Statistical Analysis in Psychology and Education (6th Ed.). McGraw-Hill Pub.: New York,NY.

Goodwin, C.J. (1999). A History Of Modern Psychology. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.: New York, NY.

Hays, W. L. (1967). Quantification in Psychology. Brooks/Cole: Belmont, CA.

Holmes, C. B. (1990). The Honest Truth About Lying With Statistics. Charles C. Thomas: Springfield, IL.

Hooke, R. (1983). How To Tell The Liars From The Statisticians. Marcel Dekker inc.: New York, NY

Hoover, K. & Dovovan, T. (2004). The Elements Of Social Scientific Thinking (8th Ed.). Thompson/Wadsworth:Belmont,CA.

Hunt, E. (2007). The Mathematics Of Behavior. Cambridge Unversity Press: New York, NY.

Michell, J. (1990). An Introduction To Psychological Measurement.
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: Hillsdale, NJ.

Preston, E. J. (1953). A Graphical Method For The Analysis Of Statistical Distributions Into Two Normal Components. Biometrika, Vol. 40, 3 /4, pp.460-464. Downloaded from JSTOR database June 11, 2007.

 

[transformers]

I've always believed people can learn -and enjoy the process of learning- just about anything if it's presented in the right way. Looks like you've found a good way to study stats. So good for you. Me personally, I don't really enjoy the subject. I took a few intro stats courses a couple of years ago and found them pretty boring. But I have to say, it's quite a useful subject to know. Stats comes up in all sorts of areas, even areas you wouldn't expect like history and art.

 

[Tink]

Stats are great to read and analyse, but only if you are interested in the topic. Carrying out the job of collecting stats must be like dying though...

 

[Infinite Regress]

Awesome, hope you enjoy your course!
Agreed that grad level stats can move too fast
Its overwhelming seeing Gaussian distribution f(x), stochastic processes etc without any explanation and derivation

It's useful for social sciences, in my case, financial markets - but unlike in physics the models derived are phenomenological rather than fundamental.

Tink, I used to think stats was similar to what the guys do for sports on TV [how many passes thrown] etc, but its quite a broad field and can get interesting e.g. testing trading systems for chances of profitability and then implementing them

 

[cuterebra]

Nice list of resources--thanks!

 

[Darby]

A book I'm currently reading dabbles in statistics, it's called "Once Upon a Number" It is about how statistics and short stories are two ways of providing the same information (Stats = lots of subjects few observed traits, while Stories = Few subjects lots of observed traits) I'm finding the book very interesting, and although I am not done, I would recommend it anyways.

EDIT: Thank you for making me feel better about my mathmatical future, I'm starving for information at my highschool