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Thread: Numeric variable being saved as text

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Nov 2005
    Posts
    3,328

    Numeric variable being saved as text

    [edited from support email]
    My lab has been using MediaLab for a year and it's been great. However, we are getting a new experiment ready and, after doing a few practice runs, I noticed that the data for one (and only one) of my questionnaires is being written to SPSS as a "String" variable. The width of the column is 50 characters, and under the "Measure" tab in SPSS, it says "Nominal" instead of "Scale" (the rest of my variables say scale). I would like for this questionnaire to be written to SPSS like the rest of them (i.e., as a Numeric variable, 8 character width, and "Scale" (rather than Nominal).

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Nov 2005
    Posts
    3,328
    I assume you have "write as text" unchecked for that item? If so, then try clearing your data folder and do a test run to generate new data file headers (be sure to back up any old data first!). This can help if the variable was text the first time that a session was ever run. Let me know if that doesn't help.
    -Blair

  3. #3

    "Write as text"

    Is that choice available in v. 2004? I only see a column labeled "WriteText" with either 1 or 2 as values.

    Thanks

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Nov 2005
    Posts
    3,328
    Yes, the option is available in all versions--you should see a check mark style option for it if you click on "Details" for any given item in the questionnaire.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Oct 2011
    Posts
    1

    Still a problem

    I've cleared the data files, made sure the Write Data as Text box was unchecked, and I've had the same problem. The numeric data are written in the Excel file, but I get a series of error messages (about 40 or so) at the end of running the experiment. I get these on four (out of 8) questionnaire files, one for each variable in the file.

    I'm running ML 2008.1.33 on a Dell machine (3GB Ram, 2.13 Ghz Intel chip) with Windows 7 Home.

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