R programming: How to learn?

[Brad S]

We'd like to learn R programming to accompany high school statistics (FYI, we'll be using The Practice of Statistics 4th edition).  I know that R would be highly useful as it's used a lot in colleges and the working work, at least in science, engineering, and data analysis, and it's free, but I don't have any recommendations for a way to learn it.  There are lots of tutorials on using R, but I don't know where to begin (I haven't heard a lot of good things about the Coursera R course and it's $49).

 

Does anyone know of a good tutorial for a high school student to get going with R alongside a statistics course?  Thanks!

[Joules]

I really liked the coursera class, but I'm already a programmer. It's actually a free class, you only need to pay if you want the certificate.

 

There are quite a few college stats books that include R code throughout the examples. I looked at some through the college library. I'll see if I can find titles when I'm back home.

[Brad S]

Thanks.  We'll give the Coursera/Johns Hopkins R Programming course a try unless we hear of something better.  DS is definitely not a programmer -- the only thing he's ever done is write a few simple programs for his TI-84 Silver calculator -- so I'm a bit concerned he'll get frustrated if the instruction on R assumes prior knowledge of programming.  Any advice for us would be greatly recommended.  Thanks!

[amy58103]

I'm working my way through the Coursera Data Science Specialization and really like it, but you may find taking the R Programming course by itself lacking in depth.  Also, without prior exposure to computer programming, the course may move too fast for your son.  

 

To learn basic programming using the R language, I would recommend Part 1 of Learning R by Richard Cotton.  A nice feature of this book are the quizzes and exercises at the end of each chapter, along with solutions to both at the end of the book.  

 

To learn how to "do statistics" with R, I would recommend R in Action by Robert Kabacoff.  

 

 

[quark]

DH took the Coursera/Johns Hopkins R programming course and does not recommend it at all. He says there was no room for creativity because it was computer marked so if he used a different way of solving a problem, the system would mark him wrong even if the solution ended up being right. And DH loves taking risks and chances with learning so a similar learner might find it to be too frustrating. DH doesn't recommend the certification for this reason too. He also felt that the course wasn't well designed and that the instructor assumed too much (made too many leaps and didn't explain steps well).

 

He switched to the R basics course from Udemy and prefers this so much more.

 

ETA, fwiw, DH is not a programmer but a very quick learner.

Edited December 22, 2015 by quark

[Dmmetler]

R for Dummies. I'm serious-that's what several separate grad students recommended for DD, and it really does a good job of introducing the skills needed (at least for herpetology). There are other books that go farther, but sometimes a little hand-holding is good to get started.

[MBM]

This is a timely thread. Ds wants to learn R this summer and we need some good suggestions. Thanks!

[Mike in SA]

R for Dummies. I'm serious-that's what several separate grad students recommended for DD, and it really does a good job of introducing the skills needed (at least for herpetology). There are other books that go farther, but sometimes a little hand-holding is good to get started.

 

This is about all you should need.  R is designed for stats, so if you are doing stats, it's extremely logical and easy to follow.  It will just take a few cracks to get the hang of it.

 

If you want to go deep into the language, you'll exceed the content of a statistics course within the first couple of weeks.