In statistics, R is the way of the future. The big boys and girls have known this for some time: There are now millions of R users in academia and industry. R is free (as in no cost) and free (as in speech). Andy, Jeremy, and Zoe′s book now makes R accessible to the little boys and girls like me and my students. Soon all classes in statistics will be taught in R. I have been teaching R to psychologists for several years and so I have been waiting for this book for some time. The book is excellent, and it is now the course text for all my statistics classes. I′m pretty sure the book provides all you need to go from statistical novice to working researcher.
Take, for example, the chapter on t-tests. The chapter explains how to compare the means of two groups from scratch. It explains the logic behind the tests, it explains how to do the tests in R with a complete worked example, which papers to read in the unlikely event you do need to go further, and it explains what you need to write in your practical report or paper. But it also goes further, and explains how t-tests and regression are related---and are really the same thing---as part of the general linear model. So this book offers not just the step-by-step guidance needed to complete a particular test, but it also offers the chance to reach the zen state of total statistical understanding.
Prof. Neil Stewart
Warwick University
Field′s Discovering Statistics is popular with students for making a sometimes deemed inaccessible topic accessible, in a fun way. In Discovering Statistics Using R, the authors have managed to do this using a statistics package that is known to be powerful, but sometimes deemed just as inaccessible to the uninitiated, all the while staying true to Field′s off-kilter approach.
Dr Marcel van Egmond
University of Amsterdam
Probably the wittiest and most amusing of the lot (no, really), this book takes yet another approach: it is 958 pages of R-based stats wisdom (plus online accoutrements)... A thoroughly engaging, expansive, thoughtful and complete guide to modern statistics. Self-deprecating stories lighten the tone, and the undergrad-orientated ′stupid faces′ (Brian Haemorrhage, Jane Superbrain, Oliver Twisted, etc.) soon stop feeling like a gimmick, and help to break up the text with useful snippets of stats wisdom. It is very mch a student textbook but it is brilliant... Field et al. is the complete package.
David M. Shuker
AnimJournal of Animal Behaviour
"This work should be in the library of every institution where statistics is taught. It contains much more content than what is required for a beginning or advanced undergraduate course, but instructors for such courses would do well to consider this book; it is priced comparably to books which contain only basic material, and students who are fascinated by the subject may find the additional material a real bonus. The book would also be very good for self-study. Overall, an excellent resource." -- R. Bharath ― Choice Published On: 2012-12-01
The main strength of this book is that it presents a lot of information in an accessible, engaging and irreverent way. The style is informal with interesting excursions into the history of statistics and psychology. There is reference to research papers which illustrate the methods explained, and are also very entertaining. The authors manage to pull off the Herculean task of teaching statistics through the medium of R... All in all, an invaluable resource. -- Paul Webb Published On: 2013-12-12
About the Author
Andy Field is Professor of Quantitative Methods at the University of Sussex. He has published widely (100+ research papers, 29 book chapters, and 17 books in various editions) in the areas of child anxiety and psychological methods and statistics. His current research interests focus on barriers to learning mathematics and statistics.
He is internationally known as a statistics educator. He has written several widely used statistics textbooks including Discovering Statistics Using IBM SPSS Statistics (winner of the 2007 British Psychological Society book award), Discovering Statistics Using R, and An Adventure in Statistics (shortlisted for the British Psychological Society book award, 2017; British Book Design and Production Awards, primary, secondary and tertiary education category, 2016; and the Association of Learned & Professional Society Publishers Award for innovation in publishing, 2016), which teaches statistics through a fictional narrative and uses graphic novel elements. He has also written the adventr and discovr packages for the statistics software R that teach statistics and R through interactive tutorials.
His uncontrollable enthusiasm for teaching statistics to psychologists has led to teaching awards from the University of Sussex (2001, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019), the British Psychological Society (2006) and a prestigious UK National Teaching fellowship (2010).
He′s done the usual academic things: had grants, been on editorial boards, done lots of admin/service but he finds it tedious trying to remember this stuff. None of them matter anyway because in the unlikely event that you′ve ever heard of him it′ll be as the ′Stats book guy′. In his spare time, he plays the drums very noisily in a heavy metal band, and walks his cocker spaniel, both of which he finds therapeutic.
Jeremy Miles, RAND Corporation, USA.
Zoë Field, University of Sussex, UK 
