Providing a vital commentary on the key skills necessary for success in the transition from undergraduate to postgraduate study, this text examines the ways of thinking that characterize the social sciences.

This fully revised, expanded and updated Second Edition of the bestselling textbook by Jane Fielding and Nigel Gilbert provides a comprehensive yet accessible guide to quantitative data analysis. Designed to help take the fear out of the use of numbers in social research, this textbook introduces students to statistics as a powerful means of revealing patterns in human behavior. The textbook covers everything typically included in an introductory course on social statistics for students in the social sciences and the authors have taken the opportunity of this Second Edition to bring the data...