Introduction to R (Series 2)

Beginners

*DO NOT book for this course if you are already booked for Foundations in Applied Statistics (which includes an introduction to R) as your booking will be cancelled

This module is part of the Social Science Research Methods Centre training programme which is a shared platform for providing research students with a broad range of quantitative and qualitative research methods skills that are relevant across the social sciences.

This workshop introduces students to one of the most frequently used statistics packages for social sciences, R. Students will learn how to download and install R, enter simple data into R, how to load data sets from other statistical packages into R, how to use the R environment for simple calculations, elementary graphs and tables. The module will introduce the use of code for performing these operations. This module is intended primarily for students who have not previously used R and who also do not have much previous experience with statistics. This is not a statistical methods course.

• Mphil and PhD students from participating departments taking the Social Science Research Methods Centre training programme as part of their research degree
• This module is intended primarily for students who have not previously used R and who also do not have much previous experience with statistics. This is not a statistical methods course.

• You must have a University Information Services (Computing) Desktop Services password (http://www.ucs.cam.ac.uk/linkpages/newcomers)
• You must have access to CamTools

Number of sessions: 4

• Seesion 1: (a) Why to use and where to get R (b) Interfaces for R (c) The basics of R
• Session 2: (a) Managing data (b) Statistics in R
• Session 3: (a) Types of data in R (b) Writing functions
• Session 4: (a) Understanding R help files (b) Graphics in R

Students will learn how to download and install R, enter simple data into R, how to load data sets from other statistical packages into R, how to use the R environment for simple calculations, elementary graphs and tables.

Presentation, demonstration and practicals

Students are advised to consult one or both of the below before and during the module:

• Zuur et al. (2009) A Beginner's Guide to R. Springer. Freely available from Cambridge Univerity computers as an e-book, via the link above (you can download each chapter as pdf under “read online”)
• Introduction to R: http://www.cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/R-intro.pdf

• To gain maximum benefits from the course it is important that students do not see this course in isolation from the other MPhil courses or research training they are taking.
• Responsibility lies with each student to consider the potential for their own research using methods common in fields of the social sciences that may seem remote. Ideally this task will be facilitated by integration of the SSRMC with discipline-specific courses in their departments and through reading and discussion.

Four sessions of two hours each.

Once a week for four weeks.