Statistics textbooks

[silver]

My 9th grader will be finishing up precalculus before the year is done. I'm leaning toward statistics as her next course, but I have no idea what would be a good textbook to use.

I'm capable of teaching statistics, but I need a book that can be done without a school license. I worry that most stats books are going to be very closely tied to some online learning system that costs $200+ to access and isn't designed for homeschoolers. I just need the book to have an easily available answer key or student solution manual, not a teacher manual. 

[EKS]

I had a tutoring student whose AP Statistics class used Starnes and Tabor's The Practice of Statistics.  I found it to be clear and readable and the solutions to the odd problems in the back to be easy to follow.  

Edited October 27, 2023 by EKS

[NittanyJen]

On 10/27/2023 at 12:52 PM, silver said:

My 9th grader will be finishing up precalculus before the year is done. I'm leaning toward statistics as her next course, but I have no idea what would be a good textbook to use.

I'm capable of teaching statistics, but I need a book that can be done without a school license. I worry that most stats books are going to be very closely tied to some online learning system that costs $200+ to access and isn't designed for homeschoolers. I just need the book to have an easily available answer key or student solution manual, not a teacher manual. 

AP Statistics teacher here (PA Homeschoolers). There are two really good stats books out there— The Practice of Statistics (any recent edition will do if the student is just studying stats and not taking the exam; you will want the 6th edition updated (black border around the usual flamingo pic) if taking the exam. You can find the older editions in print fairly inexpensively on Amazon; the most recent edition is going to run in the neighborhood of $100 (though that price may drop after January, when the 7th edition comes out). The other really good one is David Bock (et al)’s Stats in Our World. It also has several editions out which are all fine; the most recent is aligned with the current AP exam standards and pacing.

If you are looking for good, but not necessarily AP level, Tabor and Franklin put out a text called Statistical Reasoning in Sports, which is great if you have a student who is interested in sports applications.

The Practice of Statistics— I really like the problem sets in this book. They tend to be well-written, and they scaffold the learning well. The book itself is still very readable while being solid on the rigor. It contains excellent examples as well as activities you can do at home with playing cards, pennies, candy, and online simulators. This is the book I use in my class.

Stats Modeling The World— this is also an excellent book, popular in part because it’s readability is much friendlier than most other stats texts. The material is broken into much smaller chunks at one time, with a higher chapter count than TPS. The book also has a higher page count than TPS, partly due to the writing style and partly due to ample white space throughout the book.

Both of the above use a lot of real-world data and settings for their problems, and either would be a great choice.

 

Edited November 4, 2023 by NittanyJen
Corrected name of the Bock book— sorry David!

[serendipitous journey]

4 minutes ago, NittanyJen said:

The Practice of Statistics— I really like the problem sets in this book. They tend to be well-written, and they scaffold the learning well. The book itself is still very readable while being solid on the rigor. It contains excellent examples as well as activities you can do at home with playing cards, pennies, candy, and online simulators. This is the book I use in my class.

May I ask you about how you use this book?  I could not figure out how to assign the problems, or how to figure out how much work per day was reasonable.  Could you share any suggestions for problems (all the odd ones?) and for an estimate of time/day or week?

Also -- why the black-bordered if prepping for AP?

[NittanyJen]

11 hours ago, serendipitous journey said:

May I ask you about how you use this book?  I could not figure out how to assign the problems, or how to figure out how much work per day was reasonable.  Could you share any suggestions for problems (all the odd ones?) and for an estimate of time/day or week?

Also -- why the black-bordered if prepping for AP?

Edited November 3, 2023 by NittanyJen
Argh the site suddenly won’t let me type in my own response box, nor edit. I’ll try again.

[NittanyJen]

11 hours ago, serendipitous journey said:

May I ask you about how you use this book?  I could not figure out how to assign the problems, or how to figure out how much work per day was reasonable.  Could you share any suggestions for problems (all the odd ones?) and for an estimate of time/day or week?

Also -- why the black-bordered if prepping for AP?

There was a 6th edition released quickly when the standards were being changed, but a couple of changes made to the standards were more significant than anticipated, so the authors ended up issuing the 6th edition UPDATED to more fully align with the course and exam description (CED) issued by the College Board. There is a new edition coming out (supposedly in January 2024) with some more organizational changes, but the 6th edition Updated is just fine; the material covered and the order in which it is covered largely matches the current CED, and the rigor is an excellent match for the CED.

The odd and even problems are a bit like matched pairs; so if you do problem 1, problem 2 is pretty equivalent. Problem 3 goes a bit farther and is matched by problem 4, and so on. So many teachers assign all the odd numbered problems. I more or less follow that, though if there are too many problems for an easier topic, I will winnow those down a bit, making sure to include most of the hardest problems in the topic, just to keep the homework load reasonable. And if I find something I don’t quite like in in a series of problems, I’ll just pick the evens for that set.

The toughest thing for you as a home educator will be locating a reasonably priced TM. The TM is very well-done, with alternate examples and solutions that are far more complete in terms of meeting scoring expectations- the back of the text does have solutions, just not always fully worked out, and AP Stats is about 50% scored on clear communication- showing all work, labeling correctly, placing answers in context, providing correct justifications, etc. A good bit of that IS in the back-of-the-book solutions, but not always expanded quite enough. However, someone who is comfortable with stats can do just fine with the student text alone.

Jen

 

[silver]

7 hours ago, NittanyJen said:

The toughest thing for you as a home educator will be locating a reasonably priced TM. The TM is very well-done, with alternate examples and solutions that are far more complete in terms of meeting scoring expectations- the back of the text does have solutions, just not always fully worked out, and AP Stats is about 50% scored on clear communication- showing all work, labeling correctly, placing answers in context, providing correct justifications, etc. A good bit of that IS in the back-of-the-book solutions, but not always expanded quite enough. However, someone who is comfortable with stats can do just fine with the student text alone.

If we use the textbook to learn, and then make use of AP classroom for practice for the exam, do you think that would be a good compromise for exam prep and make it so that we wouldn't need a TM?

[NittanyJen]

7 hours ago, silver said:

If we use the textbook to learn, and then make use of AP classroom for practice for the exam, do you think that would be a good compromise for exam prep and make it so that we wouldn't need a TM?

Yes, obtaining the TM won’t be completely necessary. As the course instructor, you will be able to set up assignment that will allow the student to see explanations and grading rubrics.

The AP Stats videos on the College Board site have been redone over the past couple of years; they are much shorter and more focused now, so a student can actually take in a video or two at a sitting and absorb the information. 

The toughest thing for many parents will be helping the student to really pay attention to the details in the grading rubric. Many students see they got an appropriate numerical answer and ignore the rest— but AP Stats is very different from other math courses in that it’s the “all the rest,” ie understanding why things work and being able to interpret the results in context, that are really at the heart of the course. AP Stats is also really good at developing some lateral thinking; it is not uncommon to be asked a question in a form the student has never seen before, but can address, using related information they have learned. I tell my students, “Don’t count on just memorizing algorithms in this course. It won’t get you very far. You will need to make sure you are understanding why and how we assemble these bits of information, so you can figure out how to apply them in an entirely new context.” 

 

 

 

[Caroline]

About AP Classroom videos…

I teach calculus not stats, but this hint might work for stats, too. I make guided notes to go with the videos for my students. Mostly it’s the problems already on paper so they don’t have to pause to do that. It just gives them a little help. Those problems get very wordy, and they really need the whole problem on paper, not just what they think are the important parts. 

[silver]

On 11/3/2023 at 8:58 AM, NittanyJen said:

There was a 6th edition released quickly when the standards were being changed, but a couple of changes made to the standards were more significant than anticipated, so the authors ended up issuing the 6th edition UPDATED to more fully align with the course and exam description (CED) issued by the College Board. There is a new edition coming out (supposedly in January 2024) with some more organizational changes, but the 6th edition Updated is just fine; the material covered and the order in which it is covered largely matches the current CED, and the rigor is an excellent match for the CED.

Another question about editions here ...

I might wait until the 7th edition comes out and hope that the price on the updated 6th drops. If it doesn't drop, is the 5th edition (along with AP classroom material) okay to use for a student planning on taking the AP exam? Or is the 5th edition missing topics?

[EKS]

Another possibility that I had forgotten about before...

Statistics by Freedman, Pisani, and Purves (I have the fourth edition) is extremely interesting and readable.  It has exercises for each section and answers in the back of the book.  There are also review exercises that don't have answers.  It appears that there are solutions available for these for the third edition.  I have no idea how good they are.  

[NittanyJen]

7 hours ago, silver said:

Another question about editions here ...

I might wait until the 7th edition comes out and hope that the price on the updated 6th drops. If it doesn't drop, is the 5th edition (along with AP classroom material) okay to use for a student planning on taking the AP exam? Or is the 5th edition missing topics?

The fifth edition is a fine book, and many schools are still using it. It is missing a couple of topics, and the last half of the course won’t match the order in which the practice exercises and videos are presented in the College Board site (this ordering was one of the things reworked the last time the CED — course and exam description— was updated). The publisher does have some pages to help show the missing material, and the missing material is not difficult (I believe mosaic plots were introduced after the 5th edition, but I’m working from memory here) but it will be a little more work for you to line everything up with the College Board materials. It’s very workable, though.

 

[Lana Mahairi]

Hi does anyone have experience with Achieve?  Do you use it with the Practice of Statistics?  Is it a good resource for students or do you find the book and AP classroom sufficient in preparing students for the AP exam?

[NittanyJen]

On 7/2/2024 at 3:23 PM, Lana Mahairi said:

Hi does anyone have experience with Achieve?  Do you use it with the Practice of Statistics?  Is it a good resource for students or do you find the book and AP classroom sufficient in preparing students for the AP exam?

This is the first year that TPS will be using the Achieve platform; through this past year, TPS used Sapling for their online text. What you gain is instant feedback on the online questions and a test bank, if you wish to use it.

I have had students use the ebook with Sapling in the past, as well as other students who chose the hardback. As long as students using the online text are also taking time to write out the answers to longer questions by hand, rather than relying solely on the online problems, then the online platform is fine (not that much difference between Sapling and Achieve, from what I have seen so far). However, I would not consider it to be necessary. It can be a nice resource though, for the student who wants a little extra practice. And the online text has nice study features like being able to highlight or make virtual sticky notes, watch video explanations of some of the problems, and so on. My student who travel love being able to just bring their iPad or other tablet instead of the big textbook— it downloads, so internet access is not required to use it.

In short, the online text is definitely not needed for success in the course. But if it offers features your student would like, it‘s not a bad option. This will be my first year providing all students with the etext included in their tuition. It is helpful to note that the problem numbers for the written problems and the text page numbers do align perfectly between the hardback and online editions.

Jen Driscoll

AP Statistics/Pennsylvania AP Homeschoolers

 

Edited July 9 by NittanyJen
Minor corrections to a typo