Best statistics book for college?

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It depends on your major. Natural science majors (e.g. biology, behavioral sciences) are heavy on lab experiments and scales of measurement that demand parametric statistics. Social sciences usually conduct research in non-laboratory settings and the data they collect are of scales of measurement that do not allow the use of parametric statistics; they use non-parametric tests for data analysis In selecting your textbook you should not miss this most basic consideration,

You are looking for a college statistics book most probably because the assigned textbook for the course you are taking is too difficult Many textbooks use a large number of formulas that often are terrifying in their appearance That is because the authors of these books are mathematicians specializing in Statistics Unless you have chosen a major in math, there is little justification for you to be happy with this manner of learning Statistics The fact of the matter is the necessary formulas are few and are simple, provided you understand the concepts and concrete operations of Statistics. In graduate school where you will do loads of research, you will find that practice requires a different kind of understanding that foes beyond using formulas or statistical packages. When the time comes for you to defend your thesis in front of an audience of other sciences, formulas and statistics calculators are useless

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What are scales of measurement?

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nominal, ordinal, interval, ratio.

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You left out ratio!

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