A Guide for the Statistically Perplexed: Selected Readings for Clinical Researchers

by David L. Streiner, Canadian Psychiatric Association

Overview

Do statistics-heavy research papers give you a headache? Are you baffled by bias, confused by correlation, or flummoxed by F-tests? A Guide for the Statistically Perplexed is here to help! This book is designed to assist students, clinicians, and researchers in becoming familiar with statistical and research techniques by covering the essentials of the topic and drawing attention to many common problem areas.

Inspired to write on this topic in reaction to mistakes he encountered in actual papers, David L. Streiner uses his trademark sense of humour and light-hearted style to explain complex statistical concepts in lucid, jargon-free language. Streiner delves into topics such as presenting data (or, conversely, how not to), statistical techniques, and more advanced procedures. To help readers detect problems with research design and interpretation, he details important ‘CRAP’ (convoluted reasoning or anti-intellectual pomposity) detectors for which they should watch out.

Even those with little or no background in statistics, measurement theory, or research will come out of A Guide for the Statistically Perplexed with a new understanding and appreciation of these topics.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442662834
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press
Publication date:	12/28/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	396
File size:	6 MB

About the Author

David L. Streiner is a professor emeritus in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences and the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at McMaster University, a professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto, and senior scientific editor of Health Reports.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Acknowledgements

PART 1: INTRODUCTORY STATISTICS

1. Do You See What I Mean? Indices of Central Tendency

2. Maintaining Standards: Differences Between the Standard Deviation and Standard Error, and When to Use Each

3. Breaking Up is Hard to Do: The Heartbreak of Dichotomizing Continuous Data

4. Pick a Number: Sample Size and Power in Psychiatric Research

5. Speaking Graphically: An Introduction to Some Newer Graphing Techniques

6. Let Me Count the Ways: Measuring Incidences, Prevalence, and Impact in Epidemiological Studies

7. Risky Business: Making Sense of Estimates of Risk

PART 2: MORE ADVANCED STATISTICS

8. The Case of the Missing Data: Methods of Dealing with Dropouts and Other Research Vagaries

9. An Introduction to Multivariate Statistics

10. Figuring Out Factors: The Use and Misuse of Factor Analysis

11. Regression in the Service of the Superego: The Do’s and Don’ts of Stepwise Multiple Regression

12. Regression Toward the Mean: Its Etiology, Diagnosis, and Treatment

13. Stayin’ Alive: An Introduction to Survival Analysis

14. Life After Chi-Squared: An Introduction to Log-Linear Analysis

15. Confronting the Confounders: The Meaning, Detection, and Handling of Confounders in Research

16. Finding Our Way: An Introduction to Path Analysis

17. Building a Better Model: An Introduction to Structural Equation Modelling

18. Unicorns Do Exist: A Tutorial on “Proving” the Null Hypothesis

PART 3: RESEARCH METHODS

19. Reconcilable Differences: The Marriage of Qualitative and Quantitative Methods

20. Thinking Small: Research Designs Appropriate for Clinical Practice

21. The Two “Es” of Research: Efficacy and Effectiveness Trials

PART 4: MEASUREMENT

22. A Checklist for Evaluating the Usefulness of Rating Scales

23. Learning How to Differ: Agreement and Reliability Statistics

24. What’s Under the ROC? An Introduction to Receiver Operating Characteristic Curves

25. Measure for Measure: New Developments in Measurement and Item Response Theory

PART 5: MISCELLANEOUS

26. Putting it All Together: Using Meta-Analysis in Psychiatric Research

27. “While You’re Up, Get Me a Grant”: A Guide to Grant Writing

28. A Shortcut to Rejection: How Not to Write the Results Section of a Paper

INDEX

What People are Saying About This

Stephen C. Newman

‘In A Guide for the Statistically Perplexed, David L. Streiner delivers an overview of core methodological issues that every health researcher needs to know. It will get a warm reception from teachers and students alike, as Streiner has a special way of communicating scientific methods that is informative, rigorous, and laced with wisdom, but at the same time amusing and a pleasure to read.’
— Stephen C. Newman, Department of Psychiatry, University of Alberta

Editorial Reviews

‘An easy to read collection of excellent tutorials on selected areas of statistics, measurement, and to a lesser extent, research methods… I can recommend this volume without hesitation.’—Ryan J. Van Lieshout, Archives of Women’s Mental Health – June 2013

‘In A Guide for the Statistically Perplexed, David L. Streiner delivers an overview of core methodological issues that every health researcher needs to know. It will get a warm reception from teachers and students alike, as Streiner has a special way of communicating scientific methods that is informative, rigorous, and laced with wisdom, but at the same time amusing and a pleasure to read.’—Stephen C. Newman, Department of Psychiatry, University of Alberta

From the Publisher

‘An easy to read collection of excellent tutorials on selected areas of statistics, measurement, and to a lesser extent, research methods… I can recommend this volume without hesitation.’

Archives of Women’s Mental Health – June 2013 - Ryan J. Van Lieshout