Introduction to R

Author

Robin Donatello, Nicholas Lytal

Preface

This notebook was created to host learning materials for Math 130: Introduction to R at California State University, Chico.

From the course catalog:

This accelerated short course is designed as a primer to get the complete novice up and running with basic knowledge of how to use the statistical programming language R. The target audience is anyone who wants to become the boss of their data and conduct analyses. The course covers getting data into R, manipulating data into an analyzable format, and creating informative plots. Emphasis is placed on reproducibility and literate programming. The course culminates with a data exploration project.

Math 130 is designed as a short-course β€œprimer” to be taken before, or concurrently with, an upper division or graduate Statistics course such as Math 315 or Math 615. This can also be used a prepratory learning for classified admission into the Masters in Data Science and Analytics Program

Want to Learn Python? Check out Math 131

The goal of Math 130 is to get the complete novice up and running with the basic knowledge of how to use the statistical programming language R in an environment that emphasizes reproducible research and literate programming for data analysis. We recognize there are many topics and many approaches to teach an introduction to the R programming language. We have picked specific topics and methods that we believe learners will need to succeed in subsequent classes.

Course Learning Objectives

By the end of this class you will be able to:

  • Import spreadsheet-like data into R from an external file
  • Perform basic data wrangling like handling missing values, creating new variables, labeling categorical variables, and filtering rows.
  • Create statistical data visualizations such as barcharts, histograms, boxplots, scatterplots, and extend to multivariate data by modifying colors, sizes, and panels.
  • Create statistical data summaries such as tables, proportions, and summary statistics.
  • Perform all of this work in a reproducible manner using professional tools.
Details for Spring 2026

Meeting pattern

πŸ“…   MWF 9-950am
πŸ›   Holt 113
πŸ‘₯️   In Person 1/21-2/20

Instructor

🐾   Dr. Robin Donatello
πŸšͺ   Holt 202
πŸ“§   rdonatello@csuchico.edu

🚧 This site was rebuilt in Quarto in December 2026 and should be considered still under construction.

References & Acknowledgements

Nearly all the artwork is by @allison_horst and some of the material presented is a derivation from work that is Copyright Β© by The Carpentries which is under a CC BY 4.0 license allowing for adaptations and reuse of the work.