Review of Keith's "Multiple Regression and Beyond"

In a prior post, I extolled the virtues of a stat book by a friend and colleague...Dr. Tim "Happiness is a Latent Variable" Keith.

My positive opinion has now been validated by a review by Steven R. Rouse in the Journal of Personality Assessment (2006, 87[1], 118). The brief review is reproduced below.

Keith, T. Z. (2006). Multiple Regression and Beyond. Boston: Allyn & Bacon (534 pp.).

• Keith has shown that it can be done—an intermediate statistics textbook can be written in a way that is both rigorous and accessible to students (even those with just a basic undergraduate introductory statistics class). Keith has done this, in large part, by focusing on the conceptual understanding of regression analysis and the use of various statistical programs rather than using the (as he calls it) “plug and chug” method of teaching students how to plug values into rote-memorized formulas and then chug out the answers on a hand-held calculator. The book effectively uses realistic research questions to exemplify each topic area; for example, the complex relationship between sex, academic achievement, and selfesteem is included as a useful demonstration of the joint analysis of categorical and continuous variables (chapter 7). The second half of the book (the “and beyond” referred to in the title) focuses on structural equation modeling, path analysis, and confirmatory factor analysis, showing how these related procedures are extensions of regression methodology. Especially valuable for assessment psychologists (and those teaching the next generation of assessment psychologists) is the chapter on measurement error and reliability in the context of these advanced statistical procedures.
  

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