Research Methods and Statistics (Crucial) (Psychology Study Texts) [Paperback]

"Research Methods and Statistics has much to merit it. [Recommended] to those who need a book explaining statistical concepts in a non-threatening manner" (The Psychologist)

The author helps students understand the importance of statistics in psychology and focuses on the type of assessment used on university courses, concentrating on what students need to know and do, in order to do well in those assessments.

From the preface:
You probably are not very interested in learning about research methods and statistics. But if you are studying psychology at university, it is a subject that you need to cover. You need to read textbooks in order to carry out the work that is assigned to you, and to pass (and hopefully do well) in examinations. However, few textbooks seem to acknowledge that fact. Most are written as if you are reading them because you would like to know more about the subject. Very few people read statistics books because they are interested in them - they read them because they have to. (I should point out that I am an exception to this - I am told, very specifically, by my wife that I am to remove all statistics books from my suitcase when we go on holiday, because ‘they are not holiday reading’.)
In this book I have tried to take a different approach - I have tried to write a book that acknowledges that you are studying research methods and statistics because you have to, not because you want to. The book focuses on the type of assessment that you will undergo at university, and concentrates on what you need to know and do, in order to do well in those assessments.
It is my hope, however, that by reading this book you will realise that research methods and statistics is not something that you are required to suffer, but something that you can enjoy - and who knows, you might be taking research methods and statistics books on holiday with you sometime.

Jeremy Miles completed a degree in psychology from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1990, and his PhD in 1999, from the University of Derby. He is currently a lecturer in the Department of Health Services at the University of York.

Section 1: Why Do I Need to Know This Stuff
You came to university to learn about psychology. You thought you would learn about people and their behaviour. Perhaps you thought that you would learn a little about yourself, or your friends and family. You might want to work in an area of applied psychology, such as clinical psychology, counselling psychology, or occupational psychology. You might not want to work in psychology itself, but see psychology as being a useful subject to have studied in your planned career in market research, advertising, teaching or any one of a large number of jobs.
But when you get to university to study psychology, you find that you need to study research methods and statistics. So why, you might ask.
There are several good answers to that question.

...

Checklist
You can use this checklist as a final examination of your practical report. This is not intended to be an exhaustive set of instructions, rather it contains some of the most common, easily fixed, errors that students make in their report.
Is the title short, and informative?
Does the abstract give your conclusions, without giving the results of any statistical tests?
Have you removed all minor details from the abstract?
Is the abstract 100-150 words, and one paragraph long?
Does the introduction finish with the aim of the research, and the hypotheses or predictions that are to be tested?
Have you described the independent variable, and its levels.

Have you described the dependent variable?
Have you described your participants in sufficient detail (age, sex).
Have you described how your participants were sample?
Have you said that you used random sampling? (If you did, you are wrong, so change it.)
Have you described your materials (not just referred the reader to an appendix)?
Have you written your materials section as a paragraph?
Does your procedure contain all the details, which would allow someone else to repeat the experiment? (From when the participant was approached, to when they were debriefed.)
If your study is an experiment, have you described how you assigned participants to conditions?
Have you described how your participants were debriefed?
Have you described how your dependent variable was calculated? (If it was a questionnaire, how was it scored, for example?)
Have you labelled all graphs and tables clearly? (Not used abbreviations, and not used variable names from computer printout.)
Have you used a sensible number of decimal places in your results section?
Have you reported your statistical tests correctly? Make sure that you have reported the test statistic (F or t, for example), the df or N (and remember that F has 2 sets of df) and the p value.
Don’t confuse p 0.05 (the fat end of the arrow points toward the larger number, so p < 0.05 means ‘ p is less than 0.05’.)
Have you reiterated your results at the start of the discussion?
Have you referred back to the introduction in your discussion?
Have you pointed out flaws in your study?
Have you suggested avenues for future research?
Have you summarised your findings in your final paragraph?
Does every reference in your report appear in your references section?
Do any references appear in your references section, which do not appear in your report?
Have you put the report in a folder in such a way that all of the text is easily readable?