What is a factor variable

Question

Assignment:

Learning Activity

Download and install R and RStudio and perform initial setup and navigation.

Learn the required content of this unit, and conduct your research to answer the following questions in the discussion forum:

1. What is a factor variable? When would you want to use a factor variable?
2. What is unique about a numeric variable?
3. Why would you use a data frame over a vector to store your data?
4. Lists are the most complex of the R data types. What is the practical benefit of a list that stores a string, a numeric vector, and a matrix?

Give real life examples.

You are encouraged to help each other in understanding Unit Activities and practicing with scripts and answering the questions in the discussion forum.

While you are watching the videos, and while you are reading the required texts, (Book chapter and articles) in "Unit 2: Activities" experiment with scripts and exercises in the Book chapter and the content and/or similar scripts. Practice with R scripts discussed in those resources using the installed Rstudio on your computer.

Call the libraries you use within every one of your scripts (even if you have called it in your command line) because your professor should be able to run your script on his/her computer. When you use one of the functions from a library, specify the library you are using by "::" notation. For example:

library(ggplot2)

library(mlbench)

library(caret)

ggplot2::ggplot(.......)

caret::train(........)

Add comments to your ".R" script such that the reader would understand what you are intending by each command.

(OPTIONAL: If possible, for your working environment, then make an Rmarkdown document from your scripts with comments about what you have learned. Then Knit it to a pdf and upload three files to the Learning Activity Grade container.)

The file name should have this format: ActivityU4-firstnamelastname. For example, the file names will be:

LAU4-By-John-Smith.R ( the necessary Script)

LAU4-By-John-Smith.Rmd ( + if possible R Markdown document)

LAU4-By-John-Smith.pdf (+ if possible the result of knitting your scripts in Rmarkdown document that includes the outcomes)

Videos

Topic Access

What is RStudio and Why Should You Download It? (6 min)

R and R studio Set of videos (optional Complete play list)

Download and Install R and RStudio (5min)

Intro to R (optional Complete play list)

R intro 7 videos in the play list

Create and Work with Vectors and Matrices in R (9 min)

Lists in R (3 min)

Creating R Markdown Documents (13 min)

Optional: RStudio Cloud Setup (2 min)

Optional: Importing Files and Datasets to RStudio Cloud (2 min)

Optional: Working with R in Cloud | RStudio Cloud (11 min)

Articles

MediumTopicAccessTutorialGetting Started with R Tutorial R Packages and Scripts.