Course description

The focus of this course is on teaching R, not statistical theory. So the analyses are limited to first-year BSc materials. Participants can attend any 1, 2, or 3 days if they have sufficient knowledge to do so.

The topics are:

Day 1

• Basic commands and data types in R
• Using existing functions and external packages
• Loading data files
• Making selections and calculating summary statistics
• Using scripts and projects

Day 2 (required knowledge: topics of day 1)

• More data manipulation in R
• Making plots for various variable types
• Performing uni- and bivariate statistical tests and viewing their output (chi-squared, correlation, and t-tests)

Day 3 (required knowledge: topics of day 1 and 2)

• Writing functions and applying them
• More plotting
• Performing multivariate statistical tests and viewing their output (linear regression, ANOVA)
• Beyond the basics: some data simulation

Please bring your own laptop, with a working installation of R and Rstudio (see starting-up instructions).

Mode of instructions

There will be a document with starting-up instructions about installing R and Rstudio. Participants are required to bring their own laptops with this software installed in Windows / macOS / Linux.

The course consists of a mix of lectures, demonstrations and doing exercises.

Reading List

Please read and complete the starting-up instructions. Materials are shared on Brightspace.

Entry requirements

The course requires: computer skills related to installing software and saving and organising files in folders (File Explorer / Finder); and statistical knowledge as taught in the first year BSc Psychology.