Bücher

"What is science?" and "How do we gain new knowledge?" are the fundamental questions students are facing when familiarizing themselves with the fundamentals of statistics—a subject that many are worried about needlessly. Primarily, this is due to the fact that nowadays, neither in school nor during the Bachelor's program there is sufficient time to truly understand the fundamentals of statistics. This omission is avenged at the latest during the Master's program, in which students are typically expected to apply not only theoretical but also empirical research methods.

Although there is a wide range of textbooks for this specific target group available, these are usually devoted to the field of descriptive statistics. The methods of inferential statistics and, in particular, hypothesis testing—crucial for empirical research—are hardly or not at all dealt with in these rather comprehensive books. Empirical research in general and hypothesis testing in particular provide striking examples of the application of statistics; however, they cannot be understood in isolation and without also addressing the fundamentals of the philosophy of science. Therefore, this textbook is intended to fill this gap by covering the fields of philosophy of science, APA style, academic writing, and hypothesis testing. Thus, students are provided with a holistic approach to treat their research project from the very beginning.

This textbook is divided into three parts, which guide the reader through the process of empirical research. The first part is devoted to the fundamentals of science and scientific research along with preparatory steps to prepare a scientific research project. Subsequently, the second part outlines the technicalities of scientific papers, such as citation and references, structuring of the paper, and academic style. The third and central part of this textbook illustrates how to falsify a hypothesis by statistical means and thus how to answer the research questions stated at the outset. Although hypothesis testing belongs to the so-called inferential statistics, in a step-by-step guide also the necessary statistical basics are covered.

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