Zechmeister and Posavac's unique, progressive pedagogical framework presents students with a model of analysis and interpretation called "I-D-E-A". This cutting edge model leads students through the processes of data inspection (I), description (D), estimating (E) confidence in their results, and announcing (A) their findings. Their friendly writing style and systematic approach to statistics involves the student in the topics presented. The authors stress the important first stage of data inspection and also demonstrate how both confidence intervals and effect sizes are complementary to traditional null hypothesis testing. Throughout the book, the authors emphasize the understanding and interpretation of statistics and place less emphasis on computation, acknowledging and encouraging computer-assisted data analysis. Concrete examples at the beginning of each chapter illustrate the kinds of questions and data that will be considered in that section. Having this variety of examples increases the likelihood that a student will relate to at least one of them.
Scenarios presented at the beginning of the chapter, which are referred to throughout the chapter so students can see how an example is affected by different stages of analysis and interpretation.