TAMIU, UTSA Professors Release New Book on Social Behavioral Statistics

Cambridge University Press recently released a new book on statistics authored by Dr. Roberto Heredia, Texas A&M International University (TAMIU) Regents Professor in the College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Psychology and Communication, and Dr. Richard Hartley, Professor and Chair of the University of Texas at San Antonio’s (UTSA) Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice.

Titled “Social Behavioral Statistics,” the book introduces important statistical principles and easy-to-follow examples drawn from social and behavioral empirical and theoretical literature. It also incorporates the use of jamovi, a free and open-source software to complete statistical procedures.

Dr. Heredia said the authors’ goal was to write a book that brings statistics closer to readers, particularly undergraduate and graduate students in the social and behavioral sciences.

“Our goal was to do away with the mindset that statistics is difficult and that they are not good at math,” he said, quoting J. Sabina in Spanish, “We only wanted to write the most beautiful book in the world.”

Dr. Hartley explained that the authors envisioned writing a book centered on students’ learning.

“Our vision was to write a book with the student in mind that simplified the learning process; a book written in simple and clear language to help students understand critical statistical principles,” he said, “We wanted to simplify the mathematical computations to a minimum and emphasize intuition, conceptual understanding, and problem-solving.”

The textbook focuses on practical application and provides explanations of statistical tests and methods students may use in real-world situations. It proposes a dual emphasis: first doing statistics, and secondly, on understanding statistics, to dispel the belief that statistics is hard.

The book provides procedural explanations so students know how to apply particular statistical tests and techniques in practical research situations. Also, conceptual understanding is encouraged to ensure students know not only when and how to apply appropriate techniques but also why they are using them.

 Dr. Heredia, a native of La Piedad, Michoacán, México, has been a TAMIU faculty member since 1998. He holds his Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from the University of California-Santa Cruz, and a post-doctoral position as a National Science Foundation Fellow at the University of California-San Diego. Previously, he was named co-editor for Springer Nature's “Bilingual Mind and Brain” Book Series along with Dr. Anna Cieślicka, TAMIU professor of Psychology. He and Dr. Cieślicka are authors of a book entitled, “Bilingual Figurative Language Processing,” by Cambridge University Press, and “Methods in Bilingual Reading Comprehension Research” by Springer Nature Press.

Dr. Hartley, a former TAMIU faculty member, has been a UTSA faculty since 2008 and a department chair since 2020. He holds a Ph.D. in Criminology and Criminal Justice from the University of Nebraska at Omaha and an M.S. in Criminal Justice from Minot State University. He is the co-author and author of six books including “Research Methods for Criminology and Criminal Justice” by New York: Rowan and Littlefield, “Criminal Courts: Structure, Process, Issues” by Pearson/Prentice Hall, and “Snapshots of Research: Readings in Criminology and Criminal Justice” by Sage. His research interests are in decision-making practices for criminal court outcomes, correlates of prosecutorial and judicial decision making, race/ethnicity and Criminal Justice and process and outcome evaluations.

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 Dr. Roberto Heredia

Dr. Richard Hartley