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swcarpentry / r-novice-gapminder

R for Reproducible Scientific Analysis
http://swcarpentry.github.io/r-novice-gapminder/
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Change `likes_string` to something less confusing #901

Closed kaijagahm closed 2 days ago

kaijagahm commented 1 month ago

How could the content be improved?

Several times while teaching this lesson, I've had learners stumble over the column in the cats data frame called likes_string. Especially for learners coming from other programming languages, where there is a data type called "string", this variable name throws them off. They don't immediately think of literal string in relation to cats--instead, they assume that this is a variable called "likes" that has the type "string." Then they get confused by the zeroes and ones, and we have to spend a while explaining that the intention of this part of the lesson is quite different. In fact, when I was taking the lesson for the first time, I also got confused at this part.

I think this is an example of extraneous cognitive load that could be very easily fixed if this variable name were changed to something else with a more obvious meaning, such as likes_catnip or likes_toys or likes_playing. Currently, the variable name is activating learners' prior knowledge in a way that is incorrect and unhelpful.

I'd be happy to submit a PR to fix this, if people like the suggestion! Should be an easy substitution that doesn't change the narrative of the lesson at all.

Which part of the content does your suggestion apply to?

https://swcarpentry.github.io/r-novice-gapminder/04-data-structures-part1.html

naupaka commented 1 month ago

I like this suggestion. I think likes_catnip would be great since that's hard to mistake for anything else. I'd be happy to review a PR with this change implemented.

kaijagahm commented 2 days ago

Hi @naupaka--I didn't get notified of your response to this, so I'm only just seeing it! I'll get to work on this.