Learning Statistics with R: A tutorial for psychology students and other beginners

Study overview of the reviewed opening

Navarro’s preface situates the book in the practical challenge of teaching statistics to beginning psychology students using R. The original lecture notes expanded into a textbook because the available beginner resources did not meet that teaching need. Its open licence subsequently allowed other people to adapt the material for their own settings.

The newer Quarto version preserves much of the earlier book while improving its presentation and correcting errors. The author explicitly distinguishes this work from a thorough modernisation. Short epilogues discuss changes in research methods, Bayesian practice, debates about significance and developments in the R ecosystem. This is an important reading distinction: a newly produced PDF can contain a teaching approach developed much earlier.

The verified structure moves from research background and an introduction to R into working with data, statistical theory and statistical tools. That organisation gives a beginner both conceptual and computational entry points. The reviewed preface encourages attention to the version’s changelog rather than treating every edition as interchangeable. The guide does not summarise the statistical chapters or provide current software-installation instructions; those require reading the corresponding sections and checking the tools being used.

Book contents

1. A word on statistics
2. Why do we learn statistics?
3. A brief introduction to research design
4. Getting started with R
5. R mechanics
6. Descriptive statistics
7. Drawing graphs
8. Pragmatic matters
9. Basic programming
10. A chat about inference
11. Introduction to probability
12. Estimating unknown quantities from a sample
13. Hypothesis testing
14. Categorical data analysis
15. The t-test
16. Comparing several means (one-way ANOVA)
17. Linear regression
18. Factorial ANOVA
19. Bayesian statistics
20. Epilogue
21. References

Questions for study

The following prompts are Academic Master’s editorial material.

• Which parts of a textbook’s teaching approach can remain useful after its software ecosystem changes?
• Why should an assignment record the edition and chapter references it uses?
• How does the author distinguish a format update from a complete modernisation?

Sources and coverage

Preface read in full (PDF pages 17–18); contents and Quarto changelog checked.

Source edition · Source licence