R help - Feb 2008 - Using R in a university course: dealing with proposal comments

Hi All,

I am scheduled to teach a graduate course on research methods in
health sciences at a university. While drafting the course proposal, I
decided to include a brief introduction to R, primarily with an
objective to enable the students to do data analysis using R. It is
expected that enrolled students of this course have all at least a
formal first level introduction to quantitative methods in health
sciences and following completion of the course, they are all expected
to either evaluate, interpret, or conduct primary research studies in
health. The course would be delivered over 5 months, and R was
proposed to be taught as several laboratory based hands-on sessions
along with required readings within the coursework.

The course proposal went to a few colleagues in the university for
review. I received review feedbacks from them; two of them commented
about inclusion of R in the proposal.

In quoting parts these mails, I have masked the names/identities of
the referees, and have included just part of the relevant text with
their comments. Here are the comments:

Comment 1:

"In my quick glance, I did not see that statistics would be taught,
but I did see that R would be taught.  Of course, R is a statistics
programme. I worry that teaching R could overwhelm the class.  Or
teaching R would be worthless, because the students do not understand
statistics. " (Prof LR)

Comment 2:

Finally, on a minor point, why is "R" the statistical software being
used? SPSS is probably more widely available in the workplace ?
certainly in areas of social policy etc. " (Prof NB)

I am interested to know if any of you have faced similar questions
from colleagues about inclusion of R in non-statistics based
university graduate courses. If you did and were required to address
these concerns, how you would respond?

TIA,
Arin Basu

Comment 1 raises a real issue.  R is just a tool.  Too often people do
confuse the tool with the real skill that the people who use it should
have.  There are plenty of questions on R-help that demonstrate this
confusion.  It's well worth keeping in mind and acting upon if you can
see a problem emerging, but I would not take it quite at face value and
abandon R on those grounds.

Comment 2 is one of those comments that belongs to a very particular
period of time, one that passes as we look on.  It reminds me of the
time I tried to introduce some new software into my courses, (back in
the days when I was a teacher, long, long ago...).  The students took to
it like ducks to water, but my colleagues on the staff were very slow to
adapt, and some never did.  Also, R wins every time on price!


Bill Venables
CSIRO Laboratories
PO Box 120, Cleveland, 4163
AUSTRALIA
Office Phone (email preferred): +61 7 3826 7251
Fax (if absolutely necessary):  +61 7 3826 7304
Mobile:                         +61 4 8819 4402
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mailto:Bill.Venables at csiro.au
http://www.cmis.csiro.au/bill.venables/ 

-----Original Message-----
From: r-help-bounces at r-project.org [mailto:r-help-bounces at r-project.org]
On Behalf Of Arin Basu
Sent: Monday, 11 February 2008 1:41 PM
To: r-help at r-project.org
Subject: [R] Using R in a university course: dealing with proposal
comments

Hi All,

I am scheduled to teach a graduate course on research methods in
health sciences at a university. While drafting the course proposal, I
decided to include a brief introduction to R, primarily with an
objective to enable the students to do data analysis using R. It is
expected that enrolled students of this course have all at least a
formal first level introduction to quantitative methods in health
sciences and following completion of the course, they are all expected
to either evaluate, interpret, or conduct primary research studies in
health. The course would be delivered over 5 months, and R was
proposed to be taught as several laboratory based hands-on sessions
along with required readings within the coursework.

The course proposal went to a few colleagues in the university for
review. I received review feedbacks from them; two of them commented
about inclusion of R in the proposal.

In quoting parts these mails, I have masked the names/identities of
the referees, and have included just part of the relevant text with
their comments. Here are the comments:

Comment 1:

"In my quick glance, I did not see that statistics would be taught,
but I did see that R would be taught.  Of course, R is a statistics
programme. I worry that teaching R could overwhelm the class.  Or
teaching R would be worthless, because the students do not understand
statistics. " (Prof LR)

Comment 2:

Finally, on a minor point, why is "R" the statistical software being
used? SPSS is probably more widely available in the workplace -
certainly in areas of social policy etc. " (Prof NB)

I am interested to know if any of you have faced similar questions
from colleagues about inclusion of R in non-statistics based
university graduate courses. If you did and were required to address
these concerns, how you would respond?

TIA,
Arin Basu

______________________________________________
R-help at r-project.org mailing list
https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
PLEASE do read the posting guide
http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.

Hello Arin,

If your future students do not know statistics, you might consider
buffering their introduction to R with the help of a GUI package, such
as Rcmdr (if functionality is missing, you could add it yourself via
the plugin infrastructure). Another way to help students would be to
direct them to easy to use and straight-forward resources, like this
[1], this [2] or this [3]. On the "why not SPSS" point, I would
imagine the answer is quality and price, and all the corollary
arguments (say, you can use it at home or during the weekend, etc).

No more than my two cents.
Liviu

[1] http://oit.utk.edu/scc/RforSAS&SPSSusers.pdf
[2] http://www.statmethods.net/index.html
[3] http://zoonek2.free.fr/UNIX/48_R/all.html

On 2/11/08, Arin Basu <arin.basu at gmail.com>
wrote:
> Comment 1:
>
> "In my quick glance, I did not see that statistics would be taught,
> but I did see that R would be taught.  Of course, R is a statistics
> programme. I worry that teaching R could overwhelm the class.  Or
> teaching R would be worthless, because the students do not understand
> statistics. " (Prof LR)
>
> Comment 2:
>
> Finally, on a minor point, why is "R" the statistical software
being
> used? SPSS is probably more widely available in the workplace ?
> certainly in areas of social policy etc. " (Prof NB)

Dear Arin,
> -----Original Message-----
> From: r-help-bounces at r-project.org [mailto:r-help-bounces at r-
> project.org] On Behalf Of Arin Basu
> Sent: February-10-08 10:41 PM
> To: r-help at r-project.org
> Subject: [R] Using R in a university course: dealing with proposal
> comments
> 
> Hi All,
> 
> I am scheduled to teach a graduate course on research methods in
> health sciences at a university. While drafting the course proposal, I
> decided to include a brief introduction to R, primarily with an
> objective to enable the students to do data analysis using R. It is
> expected that enrolled students of this course have all at least a
> formal first level introduction to quantitative methods in health
> sciences and following completion of the course, they are all expected
> to either evaluate, interpret, or conduct primary research studies in
> health. The course would be delivered over 5 months, and R was
> proposed to be taught as several laboratory based hands-on sessions
> along with required readings within the coursework.
> 
> The course proposal went to a few colleagues in the university for
> review. I received review feedbacks from them; two of them commented
> about inclusion of R in the proposal.
> 
> In quoting parts these mails, I have masked the names/identities of
> the referees, and have included just part of the relevant text with
> their comments. Here are the comments:
> 
> Comment 1:
> 
> "In my quick glance, I did not see that statistics would be taught,
> but I did see that R would be taught.  Of course, R is a statistics
> programme. I worry that teaching R could overwhelm the class.  Or
> teaching R would be worthless, because the students do not understand
> statistics. " (Prof LR)
As others have pointed out, this is potentially a valid point, but it is
applicable to all statistical software. I use R in several different courses
for social-science undergraduates and grad students, but the focus is on the
statistical methods, with R as a tool. In introductory courses, I use the
Rcmdr package to simplify students' interaction with R. Beyond that level, I
want students to learn to use R as a practical tool for data analysis, so I
teach them to write commands. In all courses, students have much more
difficulty with the substantive course content than with R, which they pick
up readily.
> Comment 2:
> 
> Finally, on a minor point, why is "R" the statistical software
being
> used? SPSS is probably more widely available in the workplace -
> certainly in areas of social policy etc. " (Prof NB)
I don't have concrete data on this, and I'm sure that usage varies by
field,
but I'd bet that R is now more widely used overall (and internationally)
than SPSS. Moreover, it wouldn't take students long to learn to
point-and-click their way through SPSS if they have to use it in future.

I hope this helps,
 John
> 
> I am interested to know if any of you have faced similar questions
> from colleagues about inclusion of R in non-statistics based
> university graduate courses. If you did and were required to address
> these concerns, how you would respond?
> 
> TIA,
> Arin Basu
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-
> guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.

You can use a GUI to teach R, so the programming-style is gone.
But using the command line aproach, it forces you to think about your
analysis.
In an GUI, it's easy to point and click, without knowing what you are doing.
With the command line, you know where you start, and from there you go to
the next step, and so on.
I think you learn more this way.

And of course, its free, so if they are off school or somewhat further, at
work, they still have the possibility to use what they have learned (in
contrary of SPSS maybe).

Bart


Arin Basu-3 wrote:
> 
> Hi All,
> 
> I am scheduled to teach a graduate course on research methods in
> health sciences at a university. While drafting the course proposal, I
> decided to include a brief introduction to R, primarily with an
> objective to enable the students to do data analysis using R. It is
> expected that enrolled students of this course have all at least a
> formal first level introduction to quantitative methods in health
> sciences and following completion of the course, they are all expected
> to either evaluate, interpret, or conduct primary research studies in
> health. The course would be delivered over 5 months, and R was
> proposed to be taught as several laboratory based hands-on sessions
> along with required readings within the coursework.
> 
> The course proposal went to a few colleagues in the university for
> review. I received review feedbacks from them; two of them commented
> about inclusion of R in the proposal.
> 
> In quoting parts these mails, I have masked the names/identities of
> the referees, and have included just part of the relevant text with
> their comments. Here are the comments:
> 
> Comment 1:
> 
> "In my quick glance, I did not see that statistics would be taught,
> but I did see that R would be taught.  Of course, R is a statistics
> programme. I worry that teaching R could overwhelm the class.  Or
> teaching R would be worthless, because the students do not understand
> statistics. " (Prof LR)
> 
> Comment 2:
> 
> Finally, on a minor point, why is "R" the statistical software
being
> used? SPSS is probably more widely available in the workplace ?
> certainly in areas of social policy etc. " (Prof NB)
> 
> I am interested to know if any of you have faced similar questions
> from colleagues about inclusion of R in non-statistics based
> university graduate courses. If you did and were required to address
> these concerns, how you would respond?
> 
> TIA,
> Arin Basu
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide
> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
> 
> 
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I will also evaluate what did the students used before in the
introductory statistics class and how proficient they have become in
using it. If they only barely touched it, I will use my class as a
chance to further refine their familiarity with the software they saw
before. Tool is tool, I consider it's more important to use at least
one tool, regardless of if it's trendy or free or user-friendly,
really well rather than being able to juggle many softwares
superficially.

SPSS, despite of its price, is still widely recognized. I wouldn't
feel too bad teaching it. However, I will definitely shift the focus
to syntax writing from GUI so that the students will be better
prepared for other command based softwares.

Ken

Hi Arin,
Others have commented wisely an your first issue.  As for your 2nd issue, I
had my own concerns about using R in undergraduate teaching because I had
always used a point-and-click program for that level.  I should not have
worried.  The current generation has been typing on their keyboards and
their phones for a long time; they are very skilled.  They LIKE a
command-line interface, so long as someone gives them an initial cheat sheet
to get them going.  They like the price, they like having it on their own
computers, and they like that they can use it other courses.  Some students
are sometimes upset that no one has ever told them about R before.  Two
hours after the first lab in which I had students download R to their
laptops, I received an email from a student telling me about how she had
used R to do her physics homework.  I like the (almost)
platform-independence of R.  I've resisted using Rcmdr and JGR because I
want students to be able to use base R well.  If they want to customize
later, then fine.  But what I teach them will apply wherever they next
encounter R, whereas if were to use a lot of packages--especially one I
would be tempted to create to match my teaching more closely--then they
wouldn't be sure what to expect later.

gary mcclelland
Colorado

	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]

Arin Basu-3 wrote:
> 
> Comment 2:
> 
> Finally, on a minor point, why is "R" the statistical software
being
> used? SPSS is probably more widely available in the workplace ?
> certainly in areas of social policy etc. " (Prof NB)
> 
> 
What struck me in the above is the "probably".  How probable is it,
anything
to substantiate the claim?

Anyway, whether one package is more widely available in the workplace than
another is somewhat of a moot point.  If a student learns how to use one
software package then they start to get pigeon-holed into using that
particular software package.

Many jobs are advertised with "SPSS/SAS/Stata/S-Plus" (add/subtract at
will)
skills/knowledge required (or at least desirable).  The prospective job
applicant may think "Well I don't know how to use that so I shan't
bother
applying" or they may be unwilling to re-learn how to use a new stats
package after months/years of investment in learning how to use another
package, alternatively they may well just loose out to someone who already
has the experience/skills.

(Most) of this problem isn't negated when using R.  Start a new job and use
the (excellent, extensible, and free) software that you've been using for
years.

I'd stick with using R to teach your statistics, in the long-run any of them
who continue to perform statistical analysis will be grateful.

Neil

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>>> "Stas Kolenikov" <skolenik at gmail.com> 11/02/2008
18:54 >>>
> I would think the FDA regulations could go as far as
>specific SAS syntax, or at least to specify SAS PROCs to be used. 
This is unnecessary caution. FDA (like the MHRA in the UK, where I come
from) should not endorse a single supplier, even by implication, and
certainly not in the regulations themselves.

The most you will get is examples in FDA-endorsed guidance documents
that happen to use a particular package.

Most regulatory agencies take the view that it is for the applicant to
demonstrate the validity of their methods; if they can do that, the
regulatory agencies pass the application. The only problem is that many
regulators are familiar with particular software, which then gets an
easier ride than "unfamiliar" applications. That tends to slow uptake
of
new packages.

Steve E


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