How to Run Essential Analyses in R Studio, 2nd edition
Naren D. Selvaratnam
About the book:
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In the previous edition of this book "How to run essential analyses in R: For first year undergraduate students with limited background in programming" the objective was to get students to understand the basics of R programming. As a result, I have only included basic descriptive analyses, visualisations, and correlations in the first edition. In this second edition, you will find the same introductory concepts and in-depth elaborations on reliability, validity, factor analysis, exploratory factor analysis, and item response theory. I have also included a few sample scenarios to elaborate more on the application of psychometrics in psychological research and two more bonus lessons on simple linear regression and confirmatory factor analysis.
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To get the maximum out of this book, I have divided this book into 3 noticeable sections. Pat A introduces you to basic descriptive statistics and correlation (this entails basics for you to fully make sense of factor analysis). In Part B, I show you exploratory factor analysis and how to achieve the required analyses using R Studio. In Part C, you learn the basics of the IRT and some comprehensive set of analyses using IRT model. There are many IRT models and covering all of them is not the objective of this book. Taking that into consideration, I have included a practical example of running a graded response model (GRM) with narrative introductions to other basic and slightly complex IRT models.
Naren D. Selvaratnam, PhD is an academic with interests primarily in research methodology and psychometrics. He has authored 6+ peer-reviewed papers in international journals and 1 book chapter. He completed his bachelor’s degree in psychology from Winona State University (WSU), MN, USA in 2013. Upon completing his bachelor’s degree, he completed his master’s degree in applied psychology from Coventry University, UK in 2016. Soon after, he started his career as a young academic at the Colombo Institute of Research and Psychology as a trainee lecturer. In 2019, he earned a post-master degree in K-12 Educational Leadership and Administration from Winona State University, MN, USA. He also earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Educational Leadership from Management and Science University (MSU), Shah Alam, Malaysia. The focus of the PhD was leadership self-efficacy of minority students in state campuses. Currently, Naren instructs at Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology (SLIIT) in the capacity of a senior lecturer. He has supervised more than 100 BSc students and 30 MSc students during their dissertations. In addition to being a lecturer, Naren also spends substantial time learning religion, spirituality, and philosophy. He is an avid enthusiast of learning languages and currently speaks Sinhala, Tamil, English, and also a little bit of Chinese. He also has developed 10+ hypnotherapy tracks.