Workshop: Introduction to Programming and Data Analysis with R

— with Roland Toth (WI)

When: Wednesday, March 29 and Thursday, March 30, 10am–5pm
Where: WI Flexroom (A1 04)

Abstract: Data analysis is an essential skill for quantitative scientific work. While SPSS, Stata etc. are statistical software, R is a programming language that enables flexible data wrangling, analysis, visualization, and documentation without restrictions. R is available for free, open-source, and does not require purchasing or renting a license. Thousands of free-to-download packages allow statistical analyses of all kinds. In this workshop, you will be introduced to R/RStudio, programming, data wrangling, and data analysis. To achieve this, the most important basics of programming and popular univariate, bivariate, and multivariate analysis methods will be applied in a hands-on experience in R. In order to encourage and enable reproducible research and structured reporting of data analyses, Markdown will be introduced right away. Together with R, it allows for efficiently producing whole manuscripts and interactive data analysis documentations in various formats.

The workshop will take place over the course of two days. On the first day, we will engage in the basics of programming, Markdown, and data wrangling. On the second day, we will proceed with data analysis, and you will get the chance to work with a data set and answer a research question on your own. On both days, there will be sections in which you are presented with concepts and coding techniques, but also sections in which you are asked to solve small tasks.

Roland Toth is a Data Scientist in the “Methods Lab” at Weizenbaum Institute, where he supports the research groups at the institute methodologically. He is also a PhD candidate at Freie Universität Berlin. His research focuses on the measurement of mobile media use, research design, and quantitative methodology (i.e., survey, experience sampling, logging).