These labs are written for the UBC course BIOL 300: Funamentals of Biostatistics, using resources from The Analysis of Biological Data (ABD) by Whitlock and Schluter. The materials follow the same order and level as this textbook, though there may not be one-to-one correspondence between chapters in ABD and tutorials.

These labs have two main purposes. First, they are intended to facilitate active learning in some core concepts in introductory statistics. Second, they introduce a key tool in modern statistics: the widely-used, open source program called R.

Before using these labs, download the zip file containing data, R scripts, and other resources for these labs. Move this .zip file out of your Downloads folder (keeping it there can cause issues), and then unzip it fully. Start RStudio from the ABDLabs.Rproj file in that folder to make these exercises work more seamlessly.

Some of the exercises in these labs (particularly in the first few labs) may require working in a group environment.


R tutorials by topic

0. Getting R and RStudio

1. Intro to R

2. Tabular data

3. Sampling

4. Graphics

5. Describing data

6. Frequency data

7. Contingency analysis

8. Normal distribution and sample means

9. Comparing means of two groups

10. ANOVA

11. Correlation and regression

References and data sources for all tutorials

Other resources for Whitlock and Schluter The Analysis of Biological Data are available chapter by chapter here.

Comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated. If something is not working or can be improved, please let us know. Please e-mail Vikram Baliga at with any thoughts you have about how these tutorials can be improved.

Instructors, please e-mail Mike Whitlock for a link to some instructor notes on these labs.

Last substantive update: 2026-08-21