Welcome

Welcome to an Introduction to Statistics.

This is an introductory course on statistical methods. The focus will be on how to undertake an exploratory data analysis in R. The target audience is anyone who wants to understand basic statistical concepts to summarise and visualise data and undertake simple analysis.

The core material consists of:

  • explanatory material containing the core factual content of the module,
  • exercise/reflective questions (in bold) with answers provided at the end of the chapter,
  • sections of R code to illustrate how to implement the ideas developed in each chapter - the code appears in courier font in a shaded box.

Throughout the course, standard statistical and mathematical notation is used to express the concepts precisely. Common notation can be found in the appendix.

Computer practicals

The statistical programming enviroment R and user-friendly interface RStudio will be used. It would be helpful if R and RStudio are installed on your laptop before the course starts. Both programs are freely available and there are versions for both Windows and Mac. Here are some short videos to help you with the software installation and an optional link to an opinionated tour of RStudio for new users and a step-by-step guide to installing and using R packages.

  1. How to install R: https://vimeo.com/203516510
  2. How to install RStudio: https://vimeo.com/203516968
  3. Optional - Basic Basics lesson unit from from R-Ladies Sydney https://rladiessydney.org/courses/ryouwithme/01-basicbasics-0/

A basic guide to R terminology, notation and key functions is provided in the appendix to the core material.

Several data sets are used as part of the computer practicals - a brief description of each is available in the appendix. The data files will be available to be downloaded from Moodle.