The Norton Psychology team recently sat down with psychology professor Jessica Hartnett to discuss the launch of her book Psychological Statistics for Everyone (available Fall 2025). Read more about why she wrote the book, her advice to instructors teaching the course for the first time, and more, below.
Why did you decide to write Psychological Statistics for Everyone?
In a data-driven world, it is essential to understand how to interpret and communicate statistics. I wrote this book with an emphasis on increasing data literacy, nurturing a conceptual understanding of complex statistical ideas, and teaching students how to think about and share that data. While there are good stats textbooks out there, I didn’t think they went far enough to prepare all students for all the possible futures experienced by psychology majors. That’s where the title comes in: My book is great for the 4% of students who go on to earn PhDs in psychology, but also great for the 57% of psychology majors who graduate with a bachelor’s and never return to higher ed.1
What’s the biggest hurdle in this course and how do you help your students overcome it?
Honestly, so many students tell me that “they aren’t math people.” Many students are convinced that mathematical thinking isn’t for them and they can’t do it. I counter that by including engaging examples that get their attention. I organize the material using You’ve Got This! features. And if a student is willing to put in the time, I’m happy to give them many examples for practice.
What is your favorite feature of the book?
The Dirty Data Alerts. As a teacher, I can’t shake the responsibility I feel to prepare our students for a world where data is used to mislead. It just OFFENDS me: Data and statistics really can make the world better and improve our capacity to make wise, objective decisions. Then, bad players come around and try to lie to other people, using the veneer of statistics and science to make people believe what they are saying. NOT ON MY WATCH. I think that the Dirty Data Alerts, featuring cherry picking, truncated Y-axes, and environmental scandals, are important messages to highlight and convince our students that this class will serve them long after graduating from college.
Do you have a favorite chapter or section?
I really like the section where I explain z scores via maps illustrating regional differences in how Americans swear. My husband is from Long Island. I can attest to New Yorkers’ enduring love for cussing. Seriously. Use Google to find all of the maps Norton wouldn’t let me publish.
What advice would you give instructors teaching the course for the first time?
You need to bring your own enthusiasm for data and statistics. You need to nerd out, and revel in interesting examples, the prevalence of data visualizations in real life, clever research methodology, etc. I think students really pick up on authenticity. Even if, ultimately, stats isn’t their thing, I think they still have respect for people who love their jobs and love the content.
You currently write your own blog—Not Awful and Boring Ideas for Teaching Statistics. How did the blog get started and how do you incorporate it into class?
When I was a young professor, teaching stats for the first few times, I was not satisfied with the examples included in most textbooks. I needed my own. And I wanted examples that were rooted in real life. I turned to the internet and began curating my own Google Document that contained my examples. I ended up having MANY examples, so I decided to start a blog as a way of organizing all of the examples.
What interesting teaching or research projects are you working on right now?
This is pretty deep (boring) into stats pedagogy, but I’m leading a group of undergraduate research assistants on a quest to better understand statistics curricula in psychology majors in America by scouring course catalogs from different universities. There are SO many different ways and preferences for teaching statistics. I’m hoping to gain a better understanding of how we are teaching our students statistics by looking for this information straight from the universities’ curriculum. What portions of schools combine stats and research methods into one class? How many stats classes are required? How many universities have special undergraduate tracks in quantitative methods? I started answering these questions when I chaired the Society for the Teaching of Psychology’s Task Force on Statistical Literacy, Reasoning, and Thinking: Guidelines 2.0. For that project, we surveyed psychological statistics instructors about how they teach statistics. This current project will extend upon that, by getting curriculum information straight from the course catalogs.
What do you like to do when you are not teaching or working on the book and resources?
I cook A LOT. Acing a new recipe makes me feel so accomplished. I call my husband into the kitchen when I make a really pretty omelet. I’ve recently started to experiment with crepes, and I love the flexibility I have to try different fillings. I also love the changes of the season and the availability of different produce: corn on the cob in the summer, fresh strawberries in the summer, pumpkin spice everything in the fall. It makes me feel like my life is more holistic and it means that I’m perpetually looking forward to the next season. Also, I live for my summers as an academic. The winters in Erie are brutal, but I take a lot of pleasure in planning trips to visit with my graduate school friends, my undergraduate friends, and all of my relatives during the summer.
Interested in learning more about Psychological Statistics for Everyone? Start exploring here.
MEET THE AUTHOR
Jessica Hartnett is associate professor of psychology and counseling at Gannon University, where she teaches psychological statistics every term. She has dedicated a significant portion of her professional life to becoming a better teacher of statistics and supporting her colleagues as they attempt to do the same. In addition to publishing and presenting research related to best methods for the teaching of statistics, her research areas include fading affect bias and affective forecasting error. She is the chair of the Society for the Teaching of Psychology’s Task Force on Statistical Literacy, Reasoning, and Thinking, and won their Mentorship of Teachers award in 2023. She shares ideas and inspiration to help instructors enliven their own courses on her popular blog, Not Awful and Boring Ideas for Teaching Statistics, which has over 400,000 page views.
- American Psychological Association. (2017). CWS data tool: Degree pathways in psychology. https://www.apa.org/workforce/data-tools/degrees-pathways ↩︎