[R] Is this kind of removing of elements from data.frame (in)efficient?

[mviljamaa]

So I'm a beginner in R and I was testing the removal of elements from a 
data.frame.

The way I remove the element(s) with the minimum value in kid_score 
variable is to do:

kidmomhs <- data[kidmomhs$kid_score != min(kidmomhs$kid_score),]

So now kidmomhs is the same data, but without the row(s) with the 
minimum value of kid_score.

Judging by the syntax this looks as if R might be creating a copy of the 
data array, just without the rows that were removed.

The question however is, is this the most efficient way to remove 
elements from data structures in R? And is the above inefficient? Does 
the above create copies of almost the entire data structure?

In other programming languages I've become accustomed to doing removal 
of elements by changing them to NULL and then e.g. reordering the data 
structure. Rather than having to take copies of almost the entire data 
structure.