Hi, I wanted to conduct a study in which participants have to simulate investing in the stock market. Here is the study design:

1) Participants are asked how much they would invest in three different companies and have to type in dollar amounts within a given range (using either fill in the blanks in Medialab or text entry in DirectRT).

2) The 3 companies have different probabilities of giving a profit or a loss (e.g., Company 1 has 50% of doubling the investment and 50% chance of losing it all). Using a random number generator, each Company's outcome is computed and participants are given their total returns of the investment.

I can think of a way to do these random number computations using the Medialab Responses.xls file, but once participants’ total return is computed in Responses.xls, I don't how I can ask Medialab to display the total returns computed in Responses.xls to participants. Is there any way to do this?

If this can’t be done in Medialab, I know in DirectRT, is there a way to use people's response to a previous question (using “=rownumber”). Can I embed participants’ previous response in an Excel function and display the output of the Excel function?

For example, if participants entered the amount they wanted to invest in Companies A, B, and C in rows 1, 2, and 3, can I use an Excel formula like this to compute their total investment returns: =if(randbetween(0,1)<.5,Row1Amount*2,0)+if(randbew teen(0,1)<.67,Row2Amount*1.5,0)+if(randbetween(0,1 )<.33,Row3Amount*3,0)

Basically I am not sure how to embed participants’ previous responses in the Excel formula.

I would greatly appreciate any help possible.

Thanks a lot,
Krishna