This Seventh Edition explains in plain English the basic concepts and procedures of statistical analysis and makes a special effort to clarify such topics as the standard deviation, variance interpretation of the correlation coefficient, hypothesis tests, degrees of freedom, p-values, and estimates of effect size. * Highly interesting and engaging exercises include how standard scores might explain the disappearance of .400 hitters in Major League Baseball, probability calculations that recreate the chillingly high likelihood of the space shuttle Challenger disaster, and a chi-square test of the survival rates of cabin and steerage passengers aboard the Titanic. * Avoids unnecessary math, computational busy work, and subtle technical distinctions, without sacrificing either accuracy or realism. * Each chapter begins with an overview and ends with a summary, a list of important terms, and numerous exercises.