R for Stata Users: A Short Course

An 8-Hour Livestream Seminar Taught by Andrew Miles, Ph.D.

Download Sample Course Slides

R is a free and open-source package for statistical analysis that is widely used in the social, health, physical, and computational sciences. While many excellent analysis packages exist, researchers gravitate to R because it is powerful, flexible, has excellent graphics capabilities, and is supported by a large and rapidly growing community of users.

This course is designed to help Stata users transition to R by understanding how to perform familiar data analysis tasks in R. Topics include data management and coding, exploratory data visualizations, and performing basic descriptive, bivariate, and multivariate analyses. Along the way, we will pay special attention to the differences between Stata and R such as terminology, code syntax, data handling, and default procedures.

Starting August 21, we are offering this seminar as an 8-hour synchronous*, livestream workshop held via the free video-conferencing software Zoom. Each day will consist of two 2-hour lecture sessions which include hands-on exercises, separated by a 30-minute break. You are encouraged to join the lecture live, but will have the opportunity to view the recorded session later in the day if you are unable to attend at the scheduled time.

*We understand that finding time to participate in livestream courses can be difficult. If you prefer, you may take all or part of the course asynchronously. The video recordings will be made available within 24 hours of each session and will be accessible for four weeks after the seminar, meaning that you will get all of the class content and discussions even if you cannot participate synchronously. 

Closed captioning is available for all live and recorded sessions. Captions can be translated to a variety of languages including Spanish, Korean, and Italian. For more information, click here.

More Details About the Course Content

This course is more than just a how-to guide for translating Stata code to R. While these kinds of translations can be helpful, the end goal is to help you become fluent in R. Thus, an important theme will be helping you understand the fundamentals of how R “thinks” so that you can begin to use R independently.

This course is thoroughly hands-on. You are encouraged to write code along with the instructor and to participate in the carefully designed exercises that will be interspersed throughout the seminar and assigned as “take-home” practice after the first class session. By the end of the course, you can expect to log more than six hours of guided practice coding in R.

Computing

To participate in the hands-on exercises, you are strongly encouraged to use a computer with the most recent version of R installed. You are also encouraged to download and install RStudio, a front-end for R that makes it easier to work with. This software is free and available for Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms.

Who should register?

This course is for Stata users who want to seamlessly transition to R. You should have prior experience with basic data management, bivariate statistics, and linear regression.

Seminar outline

Introduction: R basics

Data basics

  • Importing and exporting (Stata) data
  • Basic R data structures and Stata equivalents
  • How R and Stata manage data sets
  • Viewing vs. modifying data in R and Stata
  • Missing data

Recoding data

  • Logical operators in R and Stata
  • Common data recoding tasks

Essential R skills

  • Understanding R’s functions and help files
  • Writing understandable R code

Exploring data

  • Descriptive statistics
  • Exploratory data plots

Classic tests

  • T-test
  • Chi-squared test
  • Storing and accessing test results in R and Stata

Linear models

  • Fitting linear models
  • Specifying common Stata options in R
  • Post-estimation (time permitting)
    • Detecting and correcting problems
    • Model predictions

Payment information

The fee of $695 includes all course materials.

PayPal and all major credit cards are accepted.

Our Tax ID number is 26-4576270.

Seminar Information

Wednesday, August 21-
Thursday, August 22, 2024

Schedule: All sessions are held live via Zoom. All times are ET (New York time).

10:30am-12:30pm (convert to your local time)
1:00pm-3:00pm

Payment Information

The fee of $695 includes all course materials.

PayPal and all major credit cards are accepted.

Our Tax ID number is 26-4576270.