R's graphical user interface 'R Commander' in the Intro Stats Classroom

• Activity Number: 542
• Type: Roundtables
• Date/Time: Wednesday, August 4, 2010 : 12:30 PM to 1:50 PM
• Sponsor: Section for Statistical Programmers and Analysts
• Author(s): Jason Wilson*+
• Companies: Biola University
• Keywords: R ; Excel ; GUI ; Introduction to Statistics ; classroom

Abstract

With 4 versions of Excel (2 Windows, 2 Mac) in use by students in my Intro Stats course in Fall 2009, it became unbearable to support all of the differences. In Spring 2010 I switched to R with its graphical user interface (GUI) "R Commander" (Rcmdr). Its author writes, "The design objectives [were to] provide, through an easy-to-use cross-platform, extensible GUI, the statistical functionality required for a basic statistics course". It is at least as easy to use as other as other quality commercial GUIs, such as MINITAB and SPSS and it is the same on all machines. However, it is free to students, most of whom brought it to class on their laptops. In this roundtable we will share experiences and ideas about the use of this software in the Intro Stat classroom.