Data Matters: Conceptual Statistics for a Random World (Nicholas Maxwell)

Data Matters: Conceptual Statistics for a Random World (Nicholas Maxwell)

This is a textbook for a first course in statistics, but the title -- "conceptual statistics" -- gives it away.

The focus is on acquiring a conceptual understanding of the material. Technical demands are modest and the prose style is highly readable and engaging. Concrete examples are given priority in the presentation, with abstract principles following (rather than the other way around, which is by far the norm in textbook writing).

Section 3.3 "The Story of Statistical Inference" is a wonderful introduction to the logic of statistical inference and hypothesis testing, including discussion of null hypotheses, p-values and statistical significance. You could easily pull this chapter out and include it in a critical thinking reading package.