Appendix A — Technology Setup

Throughout this book you’ll use software to do real statistical analysis — making graphs, computing summaries, and carrying out tests and confidence intervals. The ideas are the same no matter which tool you use, so the book is built around a shared explanation with a tabbed choice of tool: wherever there’s a hands-on step, you’ll see a Jamovi tab and an R tab.

Which tool should I use?

Your instructor will tell you whether to use Jamovi or R, and what resources are available to you — for example a shared cloud version, a computer lab, or a Posit Cloud workspace. Pick that tool’s tab the first time you see one, and the book will keep showing that tool from then on. You can switch any time.

A.1 Option 1 — Jamovi (point-and-click)

Jamovi is free, open-source, and menu-driven — no code required. It’s a good fit if you want to focus on the statistics rather than on programming.

  • Install it: download the desktop version for Windows or Mac from jamovi.org and run the installer.
  • Or use it in a browser: a cloud version runs at cloud.jamovi.org with nothing to install.
  • Learn it: the five Tech Tutorials (one per unit) and the data Projects each carry a Jamovi tab showing exactly which menus to use for that unit’s techniques. Pick Jamovi once and your choice follows you through every tabset in the book.

When you open data in Jamovi, your analyses are saved in an .omv file that re-runs automatically — so your work is reproducible, and you can always see the underlying steps.

A.2 Option 2 — R (code)

R is a free programming language for statistics, used widely in research and industry. It has a steeper start than Jamovi but gives you a fully reproducible, scriptable workflow.

  • Install it: install R and then the free RStudio / Posit editor.
  • Or use it in a browser: Posit Cloud runs RStudio with nothing to install (your instructor may provide a shared workspace).
  • Learn it: the R tabs in those same Tech Tutorials and Projects give runnable code for each technique. To build R skills from scratch alongside them, work through OpenIntro’s free, interactive IMS tutorials — self-paced lessons in the same tidyverse style this book’s code uses.

A.3 Either way: StatLens for the ideas

Separately from Jamovi and R, this book links to StatLens — small interactive visualizations you run right in your browser to see a concept (a bootstrap distribution forming, a confidence interval’s coverage, and so on). StatLens is for building intuition; Jamovi or R is for producing your actual analysis and report.

For instructors

This page is intentionally tool-neutral. Tell students which tab to use and add any institution-specific resources here (shared cloud Jamovi, Posit Cloud workspace links, lab availability, license details).