1.2 Setup in R

Goal

By the end of the first week of the course, you will want to have R and RStudio installed on your computer (both free) and feel comfortable using R as a calculator.

R is an application that processes the R programming language in a statistical computing environment. RStudio is also an application, which serves as a user interface that makes working in R easier. We will primarily open and use RStudio to work with R.

In other classes, you may come across Stata, SPSS, Excel, or SAS, which are programs that also conduct data analysis. R has the advantage of being free and open-source. Even after you leave the university setting, you will be able to use R/RStudio for free. As an open-source program, it is very flexible, and a community of active R/RStudio users is constantly adding to and improving the program.

R and RStudio Installation

This content follows and reinforces QSS 1.3. Additional resources are also linked below.

• This video from Professor Christopher Bail explains why many social scientists use R and describes the R and RStudio installation process. This involves
  1. Going to cran, select the link that matches your operating system, and then follow the installation instructions, and
  2. Visiting RStudio and follow the download and installation instructions. R is the statistical software and programming language used for analysis. RStudio provides a convenient user interface for running R code.