README.md

Surveytools2

Surveytools2 is a collection of R functions that make working with dplyr on survey analysis just a little bit better. Inspired by Hadley's dplyr package and my previous surveytools package. Surveytools2 works to extend dplyr's functionality to include more methods useful for survey analysis.

Installation

This package is not yet available from CRAN. To install the latest development builds directly from GitHub, run this instead:

if (!require("devtools")) install.packages("devtools")
devtools::install_github("peterhurford/surveytools2")

Dplyr

Dplyr and smbache's Magrittr have revolutionized how we do data analysis in R.

Previously, we might analyze a survey like this to get the mean age for people by their nationality:

data <- read.csv('path/to/csv')       # Read CSV
data$age <- as.numeric(data$age)      # Convert age to numeric
aggregate(data$age, list(nationality = data$nationality), mean)

But with Dplyr and Magrittr, we can do something like this:

'path/to/csv' %>% read.csv %>%        # Read CSV
  mutate(age = as.numeric(age)) %>%   # Convert age to numeric
  group_by(nationality) %>% summarise(mean(age))

Much cleaner code! Yay! Read more from RStudio and RBloggers.

Surveytools2

Surveytools2 adapts my previous Surveytools to work with Dplyr, bringing some survey-related functions that are missing from Dyplr's box of tools.

comparison_table

Surveytools was designed with the intention of making it easy to write tabular reports. comparison_table compares a variable across a group, both visually and with an appropriate statistical test.

iris %>% comparison_table(Sepal.Length, Species)

> $table
> Source: local data frame [3 x 3]

>  Species  mean        sd
>  1     setosa 5.006 0.3524897
>  2 versicolor 5.936 0.5161711
>  3  virginica 6.588 0.6358796

>  $stat
>   Call:
>   lm(formula = .)

>   Residuals:
>     Min      1Q  Median      3Q     Max
>     -1.6880 -0.3285 -0.0060  0.3120  1.3120

>     Coefficients:
>       Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)
>       (Intercept)   5.0060     0.0728  68.762  < 2e-16 ***
>       yversicolor   0.9300     0.1030   9.033 8.77e-16 ***
>       yvirginica    1.5820     0.1030  15.366  < 2e-16 ***
>       ---
>       Signif. codes:  0 ‘***’ 0.001 ‘**’ 0.01 ‘*’ 0.05 ‘.’ 0.1 ‘ ’ 1

>       Residual standard error: 0.5148 on 147 degrees of freedom
>       Multiple R-squared:  0.6187,    Adjusted R-squared:  0.6135
>       F-statistic: 119.3 on 2 and 147 DF,  p-value: < 2.2e-16

tab

Makes a fancy table, inspired from tab from STATA.

data(iris)        # reset the iris variable
> iris %>% tab(Species, Petal.Width)
> iris %>% tab(Species, Petal.Width)
Species ### Petal.Width

             0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6  1 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9  2
  setosa       5  29   7   7   1   1  0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0  0
  versicolor   0   0   0   0   0   0  7   3   5  13   7  10   3   1   1   0  0
  virginica    0   0   0   0   0   0  0   0   0   0   1   2   1   1  11   5  6

             2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5
  setosa       0   0   0   0   0
  versicolor   0   0   0   0   0
  virginica    6   3   8   3   3

It also does percentages:

> iris %>% tab(Species, Petal.Width, percent = TRUE, freq = FALSE)
Species ### Petal.Width

              0.1  0.2  0.3  0.4  0.5  0.6    1  1.1  1.2  1.3  1.4  1.5  1.6
  setosa     0.10 0.58 0.14 0.14 0.02 0.02 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
  versicolor 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.14 0.06 0.10 0.26 0.14 0.20 0.06
  virginica  0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.02 0.04 0.02

              1.7  1.8  1.9    2  2.1  2.2  2.3  2.4  2.5
  setosa     0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
  versicolor 0.02 0.02 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
  virginica  0.02 0.22 0.10 0.12 0.12 0.06 0.16 0.06 0.06

But, like tab from STATA, it can do both frequencies AND percentages:

iris %>% dplyr_table(Petal.Width, Species, percent = TRUE)
> iris %>% tab(Species, Petal.Width, percent = TRUE)
Species ### Petal.Width

             0.1     0.2      0.3     0.4     0.5    0.6    1       1.1
  setosa     5 (10%) 29 (58%) 7 (14%) 7 (14%) 1 (2%) 1 (2%) 0 (0%)  0 (0%)
  versicolor 0 (0%)  0 (0%)   0 (0%)  0 (0%)  0 (0%) 0 (0%) 7 (14%) 3 (6%)
  virginica  0 (0%)  0 (0%)   0 (0%)  0 (0%)  0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%)  0 (0%)

             1.2     1.3      1.4     1.5      1.6    1.7    1.8      1.9
  setosa     0 (0%)  0 (0%)   0 (0%)  0 (0%)   0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%)   0 (0%)
  versicolor 5 (10%) 13 (26%) 7 (14%) 10 (20%) 3 (6%) 1 (2%) 1 (2%)   0 (0%)
  virginica  0 (0%)  0 (0%)   1 (2%)  2 (4%)   1 (2%) 1 (2%) 11 (22%) 5 (10%)

             2       2.1     2.2    2.3     2.4    2.5
  setosa     0 (0%)  0 (0%)  0 (0%) 0 (0%)  0 (0%) 0 (0%)
  versicolor 0 (0%)  0 (0%)  0 (0%) 0 (0%)  0 (0%) 0 (0%)
  virginica  6 (12%) 6 (12%) 3 (6%) 8 (16%) 3 (6%) 3 (6%)

And it has other options too, such as sorting and removing NAs.

fish_for_correlations

fish_for_correlations(data) iterates over the entire dataframe and finds (probably spurious) correlations.

var_summary, data_summary, and summary_csv

Surveytools2 is also designed to help you quickly summarize a table.

> var_summary(iris$Petal.Width)
   mean    median       min       max        sd
   1.1993333 1.3000000 0.1000000 2.5000000 0.7622377

data_summary(iris) will run var_summary on every column, giving you a detailed view of the dataframe.

summary_csv(data, filename) will write out the dataframe summary to a CSV (with filename being the name of the file you want to write to).

num_respondents

Calculates the number of respondents for a particular survey.

iris %>% num_respondents
> [1] 150

Also useful to see how many people remain after a particular filter.

iris %>% dplyr::filter(Species == 'setosa') %>% num_respondents
> [1] 50

num_answers

Calculates the number of people who answered a particular question, removing na-like responses.

df <- data.frame(q1 = c(1, 2, NA, 3, 4, '', 5, 'N/A', 6))
df %>% num_answers('q1')
> [1] 6

response_rate

Calculates the response rate to a particular question.

df <- data.frame(q1 = c(1, 2, NA, 3, 4, '', 5, 'N/A', 6))
df %>% response_rate('q1')
> [1] 0.6666667

reverse_code

Reverse code a scale.

tab(df, scale)
> scale
> 
> <NA>    1    2    3    4    5
> 1250  874  374   51   37   21

scale_r <- reverse_code(scale)
tab(df, scale_r)
> scale_rr
> 
> <NA>    5    4    3    2    1
> 1250  874  374   51   37   21

swap_by_value

Swaps particular values with other values within the dataframe. Useful for imputation.

data(iris)   # Reset iris
iris %>% select(Species) %>% table
>     setosa versicolor  virginica
>        50         50         50
iris %>% swap_by_value('Species', list('setosa' = 'virginica')) %>%
  select(Species) %>% table
>     setosa versicolor  virginica
>        0         50         100

swap_by_ids

Changes the answer of a particular question by the id of the user. Useful for imputation.

iris %<>% add_ids  # Add ids to iris
iris[iris$id == 42, ]
> id Sepal.Length Sepal.Width Petal.Length Petal.Width Species
> 42 42          4.5         2.3          1.3         0.3  setosa
iris %<>% swap_by_ids('Petal.Length', list('42' = 'test'))
iris[iris$id == 42, ]
> id Sepal.Length Sepal.Width Petal.Length Petal.Width Species
> 42 42          4.5         2.3          test         0.3  setosa

swap_multiple_ids

Assign the same value to multiple ids. Useful for imputation.

data(iris)          # Reset iris
iris %<>% add_ids   # Add ids to iris
> 42 42          4.5         2.3          1.3         0.3  setosa
iris %<>% swap_multiple_ids('Petal.Length', c(42, 43), 'test')
iris[iris$id %in% c(42, 43), ]
>   id Sepal.Length Sepal.Width Petal.Length Petal.Width Species
>   42 42          4.5         2.3         test         0.3  setosa
>   43 43          4.4         3.2         test         0.2  setosa

breakdown

Breakdown values of a variable by the number of people who have that value or a higher value.

iris %>% breakdown('Sepal.Length', seq(10))
 [1] "150 respondents >=  1" "150 respondents >=  2" "150 respondents >=  3"
 [4] "150 respondents >=  4" "118 respondents >=  5" "61 respondents >=  6"
 [7] "12 respondents >=  7"  "0 respondents >=  8"   "0 respondents >=  9"
[10] "0 respondents >=  10"

get_vars

An easier way to get all the variables that start with a certain pattern.

> get_vars(iris, "Sepal")
[1] "Sepal.Length" "Sepal.Width"

count_vars

For a given variable, counts the number of a particular response to that variable.

This returns 1 if the iris has a Petal.Length or Petal.Width of 1.4 and 0 otherwise:

iris %<>% add_ids  # x %<>% f is the same as x <- x %>% f. 
                   # add_ids adds an id column to the dataframe. 
iris %>% count_vars(c('Petal.Length', 'Petal.Width'), 1.4)

More useful to summarize across larger groups of variables, such as finding the number of "Yes" responses given to a group of questions.

drop_na_cols

Drops columns with an amount of NAs over a certain threshold.

iris$Petal.Width <- NA   # Make Petal.Width NA
iris %>% drop_na_cols %>% names
> [1] "Sepal.Length" "Sepal.Width"  "Petal.Length" "Species"
# Note that Petal.Width is dropped.

drop_values

Drop values from a variable based on the names of those values.

unique(as.character(iris$Species))
> [1] "setosa"     "versicolor" "virginica"
unique(drop_values(as.character(iris$Species), c("setosa", "virginica")))
> [1] NA           "versicolor"

is.na_like

Detects NAs, but also blanks (""), the string NA ("NA"), and the string "N/A". This removes most NA vars from surveys.

is.na_like("")
> [1] TRUE

na.rm

Takes a vector and removes all NA-like values.

c(1, 2, NA, 3, 4, '', 5, 'N/A', 6) %>% na.rm
> [1] "1" "2" "3" "4" "5" "6"

apply_over_vars

Apply a specific function over variables within a dataframe.

apply_over_vars(iris, c("Petal.Length", "Petal.Width"), mean)
> $Petal.Length
> [1] 3.758

> $Petal.Width
> [1] 1.199333

cut3

Separate a vector into even-ish groups.

cut3(seq(10), 4)
> [[1]]
> [1] 1 2 3
> 
> [[2]]
> [1] 4 5 6
> 
> [[3]]
> [1] 7 8
> 
> [[4]]
> [1]  9 10

The values are sorted before separating into bins, which makes it ideal for aggregating based on quantiles:

lapply(cut3(iris$Petal.Width, 5), mean)
> [[1]]
> [1] 0.1833333
> 
> [[2]]
> [1] 0.57
> 
> [[3]]
> [1] 1.336667
> 
> [[4]]
> [1] 1.7
> 
> [[5]]
> [1] 2.206667

Examples



peterhurford/surveytools2 documentation built on Feb. 18, 2021, 9:13 p.m.