Introduction to R (Self-Guided)

Are you ready to be a stats ninja? It all begins with knowing R. Why? Because knowing R gives you “control” over your data and your analyses, allowing you to make sense of your data. Not to mention that flexplot (the foundational tool in Simplistics) is best used in R. And, using R keeps a “record” of all your analyses, promoting an “open science” approach to research.

This course is the first step toward your becoming a stats Jedi master. This introductory R course teaches you the basics of all you need to know to begin using R to analyze/clean/manipulate your own data. Our introductory units begin by teaching:

• Why R is superior to every other stats software
• How to download and install R
• How to download and install RStudio
• Why and how to use R “packages”
• How to import datasets\

Then we will cover the basics of “base R” including:

• What is base R?
• Object types (data frames, vectors, characters, booleans)
• Creating objects
• Conditional statements
• Subsetting

We’ll also cover some very basic analyses, including:

• Visualizing data with flexplot
• Fitting models with lm

And finally, the crew-de-la-crop, the final unit will cover data manipulation. (Because not every dataset is ready for analysis). This unit will leverage the “tidyverse,” and will cover:

• What is the tidyverse?
• What are tidy data?
• The basic dplyr functions (mutate, summarize, filter, select)
• Creating sum scores
• Pivoting and merging

The salesman in me wants to say this course is all you need to be an R master; that you will become R proficient after just four weeks, and that all your greatest dreams will come true. The last statement is probably true, but the first two aren’t. This class is an introduction and by the end you will feel confident about doing some things, but there will be gaps in your understanding. (There are gaps in MY understanding and I’m a freaking genius!) But, you will reach the “Google point,” which is the point at which you have gained enough of a foundation that whatever you don’t know, you can at least Google it (or Chat GPT it?).

So, are you ready to begin an epic adventure? Fear not, wary traveler, lace up your boots and let’s get this party started!

Course Format

This course offers everything you need to master the material. Every unit has one to two lesson plans, and within the lesson plan are the following:

• Learning objectives. This is always a great idea to refer to this so you don’t get lost in the details. This tells you what the main “take-home” messages are.
• YouTube video tutorials. These videos have been curated (or created) to specifically address the topic of the unit.
• Assigned reading. Some of these readings will be from my textbook, while others will be from papers in the literature. Often these are designed to give greater breadth to what the videos cover.
• Quizzes. Every Unit has its own quizzes that allow you to test your own know-how and evaluate your own progress. If you’re mastering the quizzes, you’re mastering the information!
• Discussion boards. These discussion boards are there for you to gain additional clarification on the topics presented. Don’t be shy! Chances are whatever question you have, someone else has had.
While none of the above are required, you are paying for the course, so it would be wise to make sure you watch all videos, complete all readings, take all quizzes, and post your questions on the discussion board.

This course is an “on-demand” course, meaning you take it at your own pace.