Comparison of Beginning R Students’ Perceptions of Peer-Made Plots Created in Two Plotting Systems: A Randomized Experiment

We performed an empirical study of the perceived quality of scientific graphics produced by beginning R users in two plotting systems: the base graphics package (“base R”) and the ggplot2 add-on package. In our experiment, students taking a data science course on the Coursera platform were randomized to complete identical plotting exercises using either base R or ggplot2. This exercise involved creating two plots: one bivariate scatterplot and...