Learn R with Sample Lessons in Education and the Social Sciences, Health, and the Biological Sciences

Abstract

R was developed in the early-to-mid 1990s and it has developed into a robust open source software environment, used with multiple operating systems for the organization, statistical analysis, and graphical presentation of data. As presented in this chapter, this set of lessons provides an introduction to the use of R and emphasizes good programming practices for data import or data entry, data organization, development of a detailed code book, visual data checks, descriptive analyses, and selected inferential analyses. Two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) is the selected inferential test emphasized in this set of lessons, given how two-way ANOVA is well-suited to investigations that examine factorial designs that model complex real-world problems with practical applications. This chapter also introduces the multiple ways datasets are organized for use by R: tab-separated ASCII files, fixed width–fixed column ASCII files, and comma-separated values ASCII files. Throughout these discussions, graphical displays, and other actions that relate to quality assurance practices receive continual reinforcement.