Monday, September 29, 2014

HELP!!!! files

We know, we know....  We said that we were going to talk about using R in the classroom for a while, but we just couldn't resist sharing something small, but exciting in SSDforR.

First, if you have already installed SSDforR, be sure to download the latest version, 1.4.7, from CRAN.  We have updated the help files in a small, but useful way.  Let us show you what we mean.....

To get to the help files, you really have three choices once you require the package by clicking on the box next to SSDforR in the Packages tab:

1)  In the Console, type ?SSDforR at the prompt.  You will be taken here:



If you click on the Index hyperlink (see the arrow above), you will be taken to a page showing all the help files.  It looks like this:


Now click on the hyperlink for the function you want. 

2)  You can also simply click on the SSDforR hyperlink in the Packages tab:


 You will then be taken to the help file screen, shown above.

3)  If you know the function you want specific help for, simply type "?" followed by the function in the Console.  For example, if you want help with the ABrf2 function, simply enter:  ?ABrf2.

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Now, here's our help file reveal that will, hopefully, make your lives easier.....


In the references section, for each function, we inserted ALL the pages from our book that refer to that particular function. 

What does that mean and how will that help you?

Now, you will have in-depth descriptions of each function, an explanation of when you would want to use the function,  how you would interpret your findings, and a contextual example.

As an example, let's look at the ABrf2 function.  Notice that the listed pages in the help file are clustered around pages 37-41 and 65-66.  When you refer to those pages in our text, you find a more comprehensive discussion of autocorrelation and related functions.  We also provide, in these pages, multiple examples of how we would interpret findings from this function.  When is autocorrelation problematic?  Why is it problematic?  Could I somehow rid my data of this dreadful condition?

You get the point.....

Check it out, and let us know how well this works for you!  Feel free to email us, comment on this post, and, of course, continue to check out our website:  www.ssdanalysis.com


Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Starting the Semester With A Little R

In our last blog post, we told you that in our Applied Methods in Social Work Research classes that we taught during the summer,  we introduced R on the first day of class EVEN though we don't get into data analysis until much further along.  

We thought that introducing students to R early would build confidence as we taught skills incrementally. Comments from two students from our last post provided support that this may be the way to go in the future, too.

In this post, we thought we would share a little bit about how we approached this.

First, the Applied Methods courses in our school are taught in computer labs, so each student had a computer available during class time. This made our lives infinitely easier when we did in-class activities.  

During the first class we did some really simple stuff:

1)  We showed the students how to open RStudio and gave them a tour of the panes.  We showed them that they would be most interested in looking at datasets, called data frames in R, in the Environment tab.  We showed them that they would enter commands and view output in the Console.  We also showed them that they would view graphs in the Plots tab in the lower right pane.



2)  We opened an existing dataset and showed the students the tabular view by clicking on the spreadsheet icon in the Environment tab.  This was a great way to first introduce students to the idea of multiple observations/cases/subjects and variable names.



3)  Finally, we encouraged students to download R and RStudio at home since in the following classes there was going to be homework that needed to be completed outside of class.  To provide additional support, we pointed them to two videos on our YouTube channel, SSDforR.  The first was on installing R and RStudio in a Windows environment and the other was on installing on a Mac.  These videos are also accessible from our website at:  https://www.ssdanalysis.com/Videos.html

We would love to hear how this worked for our students so feel free to post a comment or send us an email! Also, if you teach or train people to use R, we would also love to hear your ideas!