Naval Postgraduate School Analysis of Questionnaire Data with R

Paraphrasing its preface, Analysis of Questionnaire Data with R is intended to help the non-statistician practitioner analyze questionnaire data using R. While laudable and desirable, it is not clear to me the book achieves this goal, at least for a general readership. I say this because, at least in my opinion, for adequate comprehension of the material the reader requires at least a working knowledge of R, sampling, and general survey methodology. More on this point later; first a description of the book. Analysis of Questionnaire Data with R is divided into nine chapters that generally proceed from the very basics of analysis through some sophisticated methods. Throughout, the text uses data from a 2002 survey about mental disorder in French prisons to illustrate the methods. It liberally reproduces the necessary R code and output, most of which is available at a companion website. At 269 pages, the book is nicely compact, well organized, and for the reader who is already familiar with R, sampling, and survey methodology, it is quite easy to jump from section to section and read through them quickly. The first chapter, in seven pages, defines what a questionnaire is, lays out five principles for analysis, and introduces R in a section entitled “If You Are a Complete R Beginner. ” Clearl