TEACHING SAMPLING TECHNIQUES USING R AND PYTHON

 

Jorge Luis Rueda¹*, Beatriz Cobo², Luis Castro-Martín³

¹Mr. Jorge Luis Rueda, University of Granada, SPAIN, jorgerueda279@correo.ugr.es

²Dr. Beatriz Cobo, University of Granada, SPAIN, beacr@ugr.es

³Dr. Luis Castro-Martín, Andalusian School of Public Health, SPAIN, luiscastro193@ugr.com

*Corresponding author

 

Abstract

The free software R (http://www.r-project.org) allows us to perform and obtain any type of statistical analysis needed, since it has available multiple function packages prepared to perform the task you want, in any field or area. This is thanks to its large community of users who are responsible for creating, developing, publishing and updating these packages. The field of sampling, which is key in any type of survey or research, has a wide range of functions and packages to be used, and in particular for complex sampling designs there are many packages that can help us to perform any technique we are interested in using. That is why in this paper we will address the use of the statistical environment of R for learning sampling for students of the degree in Statistics and any degree in which these contents are taught.

But it may be the case that the teachers are reluctant to use this programming software, despite being simple to use, simply because they are unfamiliar with it. Another programming software that is currently on the rise, and which has wide applications in fields as important for large companies as data mining, is the free software Python (https://www.python.org). More and more companies of all kinds are looking for employees with extensive knowledge in this software due to the infinite applications it has, being already one of the most used programming software in the world. In the case of statistical analysis, it has a large number of utilities, although in the specific case of sampling, especially for complex sample designs, there is not so much variety. In spite of this, the "samplics" package for Python, developed for selecting, weighting and analysing data from complex sampling designs, was released this November. Knowing about this package, in this paper we will also address the use of programming software Python for learning survey sampling techniques through this package, looking for similarities and differences between this method and the one we would use with programming software R.

Keywords: Teaching, Software Free, Sampling.