Statistical Methods for the Social Sciences 
           
                                       
           STATISTICAL METHODS  
                                  FOR  
             THE SOCIAL SCIENCES  
                                       
                                       
                                       
           
          C. A. HESSE, BSc, MPhil, PhD, 
          Senior Lecturer of Statistics 
          Methodist University College Ghana 
           
          J. B. OFOSU, BSc, PhD, FSS 
          Professor of Statistics 
          Methodist University College Ghana 
           
                                                                  i 
                  Statistical Methods for the Social Sciences 
         
         
        Copyright © 2017 
        Akrong Publications Ltd. 
         
         
        All rights reserved 
         
        No part of this publication may be reproduced, in part or in whole, stored in a retrievable 
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        recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the publisher. 
         
         
         
         
                        Published and Printed by 
                     AKRONG PUBLICATIONS LIMITED 
                           P. O. BOX M. 31 
                          ACCRA, GHANA 
                                
                                
                                
                                
                                
                       (0244 648 757,  0264 648 757) 
                                
                                
                                
                                
                                
        ISBN:  978–9988–2–6060–6  
         
         
         
        Published, 2017 
        akrongh@yahoo.com. 
         
         
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                   Statistical Methods for the Social Sciences 
         
         
        PREFACE 
         
        The purpose of this book is to acquaint the reader with the increasing number of applications 
        of statistics in engineering and the social sciences. It can be used as a textbook for a first course 
        in statistical methods in Universities and Polytechnics. The book can also be used by decision 
        makers and researchers to either gain basic understanding or to extend their knowledge of 
        some of the most commonly used statistical methods. 
          Our goal is to introduce the basic theory without getting too involved in mathematical 
        detail, and thus to enable a larger proportion of the book to be devoted to practical applications. 
        Because of this, some results are stated without proof, where this is unlikely to affect the 
        reader’s comprehension. However, we have tried to avoid the cook-book approach to statistics 
        by carefully explaining the basic concepts of the subject, such as probability and sampling 
        distributions; these the reader must understand. 
        The worst abuses of statistics occur when scientists try to analyze their data by substituting 
        measurements into statistical formulae which they do not understand. 
          The book contains ten Chapters. Chapter 1 deals with overview of statistics. In Chapter 2, 
        we discuss how to describe data, using graphical and summary statistics. Chapter 3 covers 
        probability while Chapters 4 and 5 cover probability distributions. Chapters 6, 7, 8 and 9 
        present basic tools of statistical inference; point estimation, interval estimation, hypothesis 
        testing and analysis of variance. Chapter 10 presents linear regression and correlation. Our 
        presentation is distinctly applications-oriented. 
          A prominent feature of the book is the inclusion of many examples. Each example is 
        carefully  selected  to  illustrate  the  application  of  a  particular  statistical  technique  and  or 
        interpretation of results. Another feature is that each chapter has an extensive collection of 
        exercises. Many of these exercises are from published sources, including past examination 
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                  Statistical Methods for the Social Sciences 
         
        questions from King Saud University (Saudi Arabia) and Methodist University College Ghana. 
        Answers to all the exercises are given at the end of the book.  
          We are grateful to Ms. Patience Workpor, secretary to the Dean of Informatics and 
        Mathematical Sciences for her editorial assistance. We are also grateful to Professor Abdullah 
        Al-Shiha of King Saud University (Saudi Arabia) for reading a draft of the book and offering 
        helpful comments and for his permission to publish the statistical tables he used the Minitab 
        software package to prepare. These tables are given in the Appendix. Last, but not least, we 
        thank King Saud University and Methodist University College Ghana, for permission to use 
        their past examination questions in Statistics.  
          We  have  gone  to  great  lengths  to  make  this  text  both  pedagogically  sound  and                         
        error  free.  If  you  have  any  suggestions,  or  find  potential  errors,  please  contact  us  at 
        jonofosu@hotmail.com or akrongh@yahoo.com. 
                                                J. B. Ofosu 
                                                C. A. Hesse 
                                                July, 2017 
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
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