Books in the Understanding Statistics series

This volume guides its reader through the basics of Item Response Theory, with an emphasis on what and how to include relevant information in the methods and results sections of professional papers. The author offers examples of good and bad write-ups.

This volume guides its reader through the basics of reliability, with an emphasis on what and how to include relevant information in the methods and results sections of professional papers. The author offers examples of good and bad write-ups.

This book provides a non-mathematical introduction to the theory and application of Exploratory Factor Analysis. Among the issues discussed are the use of confirmatory versus exploratory factor analysis, the use of principal components analysis versus common factor analysis, and procedures for determining the appropriate number of factors.

Validity and Validation is an introduction to validity theory and to the methods used to obtain evidence for the validity of research and assessment results. The book briefly describes the philosophy of science roots of validity theory and how these philosophical perspectives influence concepts of internal and external validity in research methodology.

The Philosophy of Quantitative Methods undertakes a philosophical examination of a number of important quantitative research methods within the behavioral sciences in order to overcome the non-critical approaches typically provided by textbooks. These research methods are exploratory data analysis, statistical significance testing, Bayesian confirmation theory and statistics, meta-analysis, and exploratory factor analysis. Further readings are provided toextend the reader's overall understanding of these methods.