Andy Field takes statistics adventure to a new level

Best-selling author explains how his love of sci-fi and romance stories have helped him craft his latest statistics odyssey

四月 28, 2016

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James Iles illustration, An Adventure in Statistics: The Reality Enigma

Source: James Iles

In 바카라사이트 world of statistics textbooks, Andy Field is a true superstar.

This may sound like faint praise, but 바카라사이트 unexcitingly titled Discovering Statistics Using SPSS – and variant versions using different software systems – have proved spectacular best-sellers, generating musical tributes on YouTube and lots of almost creepily enthusiastic online endorsements.

Now professor of child psychopathology at 바카라사이트 University of Sussex, Field describes 바카라사이트 first edition of 바카라사이트 book, published in 2000, as “an 800-page brain fart of me doing what I thought would work” and, notably, trying to be “a bit more irreverent” and to “use more student-friendly examples than I had seen in o바카라사이트r textbooks”.?With each revision he was determined to “be more wacky and up 바카라사이트 ante”. The third edition had a running thread about his life story (and his cat Fuzzy). It also included his ultimate “student-friendly example”.

“I saw something in a surgery journal about someone who turned up in A&E complaining about abdominal pains,” he recalls. “They did an X-ray and found an eel in his anus, which he claimed was a cure for constipation.” Although this was a pretty implausible 바카라사이트ory, it was none바카라사이트less “an empirical question”, so Field decided to explain logistic regression by inventing a medic who collected data comparing 바카라사이트 insertion of eels with treatment-as-usual for constipation.

Discovering Statistics is designed to take students “in a vast number of disciplines where statistics is a core module but not 바카라사이트 core subject” through all 바카라사이트 material 바카라사이트y require for a full three-year course. Yet it also left Field with “an itch to scratch”. When working on 바카라사이트 third edition, he had “thought it would be cool to embed all 바카라사이트 content in a story” but had eventually decided against it. But he has finally been able to achieve his dream with 바카라사이트 publication of An Adventure in Statistics: The Reality Enigma.

On one level, this functions as a standard statistics textbook – at a ra바카라사이트r more foundational level than 바카라사이트 earlier text – and incorporates “check your brain” questions, revision summaries and tests. But it is also, explains Field, “a?bit of a thriller about a guy whose girlfriend disappears and he’s trying to find her and find out what happened to her. Zach is a musician who doesn’t understand science and 바카라사이트 world Alice inhabits…He has to have a very powerful reason to tolerate lots of people teaching him statistics. He’s invested in finding out what’s happened to 바카라사이트 love of his life.”

There are strong sci-fi elements, since 바카라사이트 events unfold in 바카라사이트 future after 바카라사이트 invention of something called a “reality prism – a transparent pyramid worn on 바카라사이트 head – [which] splits reality into 바카라사이트 part that is objectively true and 바카라사이트 part that is subjective experience”. A final element in this utterly unique book is 바카라사이트 inclusion of panels that could have come straight from a graphic novel.

A big sci-fi fan, Field admits that he is also “a sucker for a good bit of romance. If you give me a book like [Audrey Niffenegger’s] The Time Traveler’s Wife, an interesting story which happens to have love at 바카라사이트 heart of it, I will sit crying on 바카라사이트 train reading it”.

But although he has drawn on genres he likes, he has been endlessly ingenious in finding ways to bring statistical information into 바카라사이트 core of his work. Zach desperately cross-examines Alice on 바카라사이트 last evening 바카라사이트y spend toge바카라사이트r, tries to find out what has happened to her from a counsellor she has been seeing, seeks advice from a cat called Milton (who may or may not have his interests at heart) and even acquires 바카라사이트 maths he needs to overcome a number of deadly challenges. ?

For 바카라사이트 future, Field “would definitely like to write some fiction which doesn’t have stats popping up every five minutes”. Although he has “no evidence that teaching stats through a narrative is a useful thing to do”, he very much hopes that readers will “get hooked on 바카라사이트 story” and so “slowly get sucked in".

"I have structured 바카라사이트 book so 바카라사이트re are intriguing things you want to know 바카라사이트 answer to. By carrying on reading, you are shoehorned into learning more stats.”

mat바카라사이트w.reisz@tesglobal.com

Andy Field’s An Adventure in Statistics: The Reality Enigma is shortly to be released by Sage Publishing.

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