MIND ON STATISTICS emphasizes the conceptual development of statistical ideas and seeks to find meaning in data. Authors Jessica Utts and Robert Heckard satisfy students' natural curiosity by actively engaging them with inspiring questions and explaining statistical topics in the context of excellent examples and case studies. MIND ON STATISTICS balances the spirit of statistical literacy with the statistical methodology taught in general introductory statistics courses. The authors built the book on two learning premises: (1) New material is much easier to learn and remember if it is related to something interesting or previously known; (2) New material is easier to learn if students actively ask questions and find the answers for themselves. More than any other text available, MIND ON STATISTICS motivates students to develop their statistical intuition by focusing on analyzing data and interpreting results, rather than on mathematical formulation. A wide range of interesting and real examples provides further motivation for students to learn about statistics.

Benefits:

• NEW! Chapters 9-13, containing the core material on sampling distributions and statistical inference have been reorganized for maximum flexibility. Each of the topics of sampling distributions, confidence intervals, and hypothesis testing is broken up into six modules. The first module provides an introduction and the remaining five modules each deal with a specific parameter (one mean, one proportion, etc.). This modular format not only emphasizes the similarity among the inference procedures for the five parameters discussed, it also allows instructors to cover this material in any order they choose.
• Compelling examples and "real life" case studies are relevant and help to motivate and engage students in the topic. This reinforces the premise of the text that something is easier to learn if it can be related to something interesting or previously learned.
• The book helps students expand their "frame of reference." Unique and motivating opening and closing chapters draw students into the course and the subject matter. These chapters clearly illustrate that statistical methods have contributed to our understanding of health, psychology, commerce, ecology, politics, music, lifestyle choices, and dozens of other topics.
• Thought Questions provide students with opportunities to engage in and explore a topic further. Students discover and verify important ideas for themselves. Hints on how to solve these problems are provided and complete answers are available on the Instructor's Suite CD-ROM.
• "Technical Notes" appear throughout to provide additional discussion on statistical techniques presented in the text.
• "In Summary" boxes appear at points within the chapter where students need them most, as opposed to being relegated to the end of a chapter or section.
• Skillbuilder Applet Activities, found throughout the text, use Java applets from CyberStats to explore the topic and the data further. These applets, which are on the Student's Suite CD-ROM accompanying each new text, give students more opportunity for hands-on learning and allow students to explore statistics on their own. Skillbuilder Applet Exercises at the end of the chapters make the applets easy to integrate into your teaching.
• Specific technology manuals providing instructions on how to use SPSS, MINITAB, Excel, R, JMP, and TI-83/84 graphing calculator can be found on the Student's Suite CD-ROM. Icons will appear throughout the text near examples that reference the technology manuals, making it easy to integrate into your classroom.
• A superior supplements package includes the Student's Suite CD-ROM packaged with each new text. The CD features technology manuals which refer to specific examples in MIND ON STATISTICS and provides step-by-step assistance for learning SPSS, MINITAB, Excel, R, JMP, and TI-83/84 graphing calculator. In addition, the Student's Suite CD-ROM contains Skillbuilder applets, journal articles referenced in the text, 5 supplemental chapters on additional topics, and data sets needed to complete specific exercises.
• vMentor: Live online tutoring help, available through iLrn Statistics, is text-specific, one-to-one, online tutoring help from a statistician. vMentor features two-way audio, an interactive whiteboard for displaying presentation materials, and instant messaging. With vMentor, students interact with the tutor and other students using standard Windows or Macintosh microphones and speakers. Inside the vMentor virtual classroom, icons indicate who is in the class and who is speaking, sending a message, or using the whiteboard. To ask a question, students simply click on the "hand" icon. For more information on vMentor (including hours the virtual classroom is open), contact your Thomson representative.
• NEW! Chapters 3 and 4 have been reorganized so that the basic topics of random sampling and surveys come before more complicated studies based on randomized experiments and observational studies.
• NEW! StatisticsNow, featured within chapters, is a robust, personalized online learning companion that helps students gauge their unique study needs and makes the most of their study time by building focused Personalized Learning Plans that reinforce key concepts. Pre-Tests give students an initial assessment of their knowledge. Personalized Learning Plans, based on the students' answers to the pre-test questions, outline key elements for review. Post-Tests assess student mastery of core chapter concepts. Access to StatisticsNow is available at no additional charge with purchase of a new text.
• NEW! Interactive Video Skillbuilders contain hours of helpful, interactive video instruction. These videos walk your students through key examples from the text, step by step - giving them a foundation in the skills that they need to know. Video icons located in the margin guide students to view the video on the Skillbuilder CD-ROM.
• NEW! There are now 1,500 exercises in the text, up from 1,300 in the previous edition. The chapter on sampling distribution has 144 exercises (over 50% more than in the previous edition).
• NEW! Technology tips now appear throughout for MINITAB, SPSS, Excel, JMP, and TI-83/84 calculators. Technical manuals are included on the Student's Suite CD for these technologies, as well as for JMP and R.
• NEW! Throughout the text, journal article icons will appear next to the examples and case studies that direct students to a journal article, enabling them to see how news stories are formulated from journal articles. The articles referenced appear on the Student's Suite CD-ROM.
• NEW! For the first time, an Activities Workbook is available with MIND ON STATISTICS. The Workbook includes a variety of activities for students to explore individually or in teams. These activities guide students through key features of the text, help them understand statistical concepts, provide hands-on data collection and interpretation team-work, include exercises with tips incorporated for solution strategies, and provide bonus dataset activities.
• NEW! The 1pass access card is your portal to nearly all of the text's online resources. Using a single user name and password that you create, you receive access to valuable online resources including our iLrn Statistics Homework system, StatisticsNow, vMentor live tutoring, and more.