1.2 Course Objectives

This course has four intertwined objectives. After completing the course, students will be able to:

1. Fundamentals of inferential statistics: Describe the use of various statistical tests, their requirements and assumptions, and their interpretation; execute these tests both by hand and programmatically using R.

2. Fundamentals of data analysis: Perform basic data cleaning and analysis tasks programmatically using R in ways that support high quality documentation and replication.

3. Fundamentals of data visualization: Create and present publication quality plots programmatically using R and ggplot2.

4. Quantitative research synthesis: Plan, implement (using R), and present (using knitr as well as the word processing and presentation applications of your choice) a research project that uses linear regression to answer a research question.