Hello, All:
Would anyone recommend R for an introductory statistics class for
freshman psychology students in the US? If yes, might there be any
notes for such available?
I just checked r-projects.org and CRAN contributed documentation
and found nothing.
I have a friend who teaches such a class, and wondered if R might
be suitable. The alternative is SPSS at $406 per student.
Thanks,
Spencer
--
Spencer Graves, PE, PhD
President and Chief Technology Officer
Structure Inspection and Monitoring, Inc.
751 Emerson Ct.
San Jos?, CA 95126
ph: 408-655-4567
web: www.structuremonitoring.com
Hi Spencer, I would definitely recommend R for introductory stats. course because it is free and easy to learn. You can visit www.twotorials.com for two-minute tutorials on R. Also www.coursera.org offers many free courses on R, for intro stats check this out: https://www.coursera.org/course/stats1 Hope this helps, Umair Durrani email: umairdurrani@outlook.com> Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2013 18:19:16 -0800 > From: spencer.graves@prodsyse.com > To: R-help@r-project.org > Subject: [R] R for a stats intro for undergrads in the US? > > Hello, All: > > > Would anyone recommend R for an introductory statistics class for > freshman psychology students in the US? If yes, might there be any > notes for such available? > > > I just checked r-projects.org and CRAN contributed documentation > and found nothing. > > > I have a friend who teaches such a class, and wondered if R might > be suitable. The alternative is SPSS at $406 per student. > > > Thanks, > Spencer > > > -- > Spencer Graves, PE, PhD > President and Chief Technology Officer > Structure Inspection and Monitoring, Inc. > 751 Emerson Ct. > San José, CA 95126 > ph: 408-655-4567 > web: www.structuremonitoring.com > > ______________________________________________ > R-help@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.[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
Dear Spencer, I regularly use R (via the R Commander) for intro stats courses taught to third-year sociology undergrads (in Canada). Without knowing where your friend teaches, it's hard to know what her students are like, but in my experience psychology students are generally more numerate than sociology students, and first-year students would likely have a bit more trouble with the course than third-year students. That your friend's department teaches this course in the first year suggests that it, and possibly its students, have a quantitative orientation. I've also used a variety of statistical software to teach intro stats, including SPSS. I originally wrote the Rcmdr package so that I could use R instead, and I find that students have no more trouble pointing and clicking in the R Commander than they do in SPSS. It's also my experience that computing, regardless of the software that I've used, is the least problematic part of the course. It's much harder for students to understand statistical concepts, and even to apply simple formulas correctly, than to use menu-driven statistical software. If you'd like to take a look at the course website for my undergrad class the last time I taught it in 2011-2012, it's at <http://socserv.socsci.mcmaster.ca/jfox/Courses/soc3h6/index.html>. I'm currently teaching essentially the same course, but for grad students in an accelerated one-semester format, and that's at <http://socserv.socsci.mcmaster.ca/jfox/Courses/soc6z3/index.html>. You'll notice that in the grad class, students use their own computers, while in the undergrad class, they use a computer lab. That decision relates more to the size of the class (about 200 undergrads divided into four labs, 10 grad students) than to the level of the students. I hope this helps, John ----------------------------------------------- John Fox, Professor McMaster University Hamilton, Ontario, Canada http://socserv.socsci.mcmaster.ca/jfox/> -----Original Message----- > From: r-help-bounces at r-project.org [mailto:r-help-bounces at r- > project.org] On Behalf Of Spencer Graves > Sent: Saturday, November 16, 2013 9:19 PM > To: R list > Subject: [R] R for a stats intro for undergrads in the US? > > Hello, All: > > > Would anyone recommend R for an introductory statistics class > for > freshman psychology students in the US? If yes, might there be any > notes for such available? > > > I just checked r-projects.org and CRAN contributed documentation > and found nothing. > > > I have a friend who teaches such a class, and wondered if R > might > be suitable. The alternative is SPSS at $406 per student. > > > Thanks, > Spencer > > > -- > Spencer Graves, PE, PhD > President and Chief Technology Officer > Structure Inspection and Monitoring, Inc. > 751 Emerson Ct. > San Jos?, CA 95126 > ph: 408-655-4567 > web: www.structuremonitoring.com > > ______________________________________________ > 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.
Googling "R for psychology students" I found this:
http://health.adelaide.edu.au/psychology/ccs/docs/lsr/lsr-0.3.pdf
and this:
https://personality-project.org/r/
The latter has links to many short courses and tutorials.
If you do end up using R, I find the following sites extremely helpful:
Quick-R <http://www.statmethods.net/> : (http://www.statmethods.net/)has a
very intuitive layout with lots of really helpful
examples.
Cookbook for R <http://www.cookbook-r.com/> : (http://www.cookbook-r.com/)
is organized around showing you how to do specific
things.
Know that R is a command driven language, so no "point and click"
really - you have to learn the commands which does make for a
learning curve. Still, most basic statistics and a lot of not so basic
statistics can be generated with just a few commands. I would
also recommend having students install R-studio <http://www.rstudio.com/>
(http://www.rstudio.com/) in addition to R (there's
controversy about this - many people hate R-Studio). I find it very helpful in
organizing work sessions, inspecting datasets,
locating files, etc.
Good luck with it.
-----Original Message-----
From: Spencer Graves [mailto:spencer.graves at prodsyse.com]
Sent: Saturday, November 16, 2013 9:19 PM
To: R list
Subject: [R] R for a stats intro for undergrads in the US?
Hello, All:
Would anyone recommend R for an introductory statistics class for
freshman psychology students in the US? If yes, might
there be any notes for such available?
I just checked r-projects.org and CRAN contributed documentation and
found nothing.
I have a friend who teaches such a class, and wondered if R might
be suitable. The alternative is SPSS at $406 per student.
Thanks,
Spencer
--
Spencer Graves, PE, PhD
President and Chief Technology Officer
Structure Inspection and Monitoring, Inc.
751 Emerson Ct.
San Jos?, CA 95126
ph: 408-655-4567
web: www.structuremonitoring.com
Christopher W. Ryan
2013-Nov-18 01:52 UTC
[R] R for a stats intro for undergrads in the US?
I would recommend it. I have no experience teaching statistics to psychology students, but I have done a sequence of hands-on workshops introducing R to a class of high school students who were engaged in a three-year-long science research class. My presentations were not discipline-specific, and we have just barely gotten into any real statistical concepts so far. Mainly it was the nuts and bolts of how to use base R; the advantages of writing and saving code over a point-and-click interface, reproducible research and all; and a lot of graphics. End of last session we just started to tackle the concepts of sample versus population, and sampling variation. I could share with you my org file where I stored all the commands and notes, if it would be of any use. --Chris Ryan SUNY Upstate Medical University Binghamton, NY Spencer Graves wrote:> Hello, All: > > > Would anyone recommend R for an introductory statistics class for > freshman psychology students in the US? If yes, might there be any > notes for such available? > > > I just checked r-projects.org and CRAN contributed documentation > and found nothing. > > > I have a friend who teaches such a class, and wondered if R might > be suitable. The alternative is SPSS at $406 per student. > > > Thanks, > Spencer > >
Dear Spencer, In case you have similar questions you may want to ask them on r-sig-teaching, which deals specifically with such topics. Regards, Liviu On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 3:19 AM, Spencer Graves <spencer.graves at prodsyse.com> wrote:> Hello, All: > > > Would anyone recommend R for an introductory statistics class for > freshman psychology students in the US? If yes, might there be any notes > for such available? > > > I just checked r-projects.org and CRAN contributed documentation and > found nothing. > > > I have a friend who teaches such a class, and wondered if R might be > suitable. The alternative is SPSS at $406 per student. > > > Thanks, > Spencer > > > -- > Spencer Graves, PE, PhD > President and Chief Technology Officer > Structure Inspection and Monitoring, Inc. > 751 Emerson Ct. > San Jos?, CA 95126 > ph: 408-655-4567 > web: www.structuremonitoring.com > > ______________________________________________ > 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.-- Do you know how to read? http://www.alienetworks.com/srtest.cfm http://goodies.xfce.org/projects/applications/xfce4-dict#speed-reader Do you know how to write? http://garbl.home.comcast.net/~garbl/stylemanual/e.htm#e-mail