helping with programming esp. randomization

[rfreyberg]

More questions! Surprise, surprise!!

When going to analyze the data, it looks like I've maxed out the excel file and when I open spss, I don't get the variable names - but a series of v0001, v002.

Do I need to get excel 2007 to see all of my variables? How do I get SPSS to show the name of the variable rather than the weird code? I've attached a data file as an example.

Also, I've been noticing some problems at the end of the study. It takes a very long while for the program to say "Please tell the experimenter that you are done". The program has been kind of crashing before that point - is there a way to stop that from happening? Everything else runs so smoothly even with all of the video files that the program is coordinating that it seems so odd to practically give up at the very end. If I do a control-alt-delete before getting that popup message, does the computer still hold onto the data or do you need to click "ok" for it to save the data?

[jarvis24]

for the excel limit issue, see:

http://www.empirisoft.com/support/showthread.php?t=498

and see the section on "CSV vs TXT vs SAV Files" here regarding the variable naming issue:

http://www.empirisoft.com/medialab/help/data.htm

let me know if that helps. regarding the stall at the end--how much time are we talking about?

[rfreyberg]

Thanks! I will check those links out.

The last stall that I observed was about 2 minutes at least.

[jarvis24]

Is the stall just on this one experiment, or on all (e.g., even th sample experiment that comes with MediaLab)? If it is specific to this one experiment, do you have other programs involved with your study? e.g., DirectRT, Word, PowerPoint, etc.? What is the last item in your session?

[rfreyberg]

I think it's just with the experiment in its completed form. When I even did a sample run with far fewer videos loaded, I never had a delay. I'm only using media lab for the study - coordinating videos with the questions.

The last thing they do is to complete a questionnaire after a video clip and then they get a thank you screen - there's a skip that takes them from the last questionnaire to the thank you screen.

[rfreyberg]

I seemed to have stumbled upon another problem at the end today. The running of the actual experiment is fine - as usual.

Today, the problem seems to be with the skip. The participants got to the skip - but then it was supposed to go to the end - where they get a thank you screen. Today, the skip worked but then the program just closed - they didn't get the thank you screen and they didn't get the popup that says "please tell the experimenter that you are done" that's built into the system.

The only thing that I changed today was that I moved the skip earlier because the study was just too long. I've attached one of the questionnaire files and the experiment file so that you can take a look.

Sadly, when I open up the data folder, nothing is there which makes me think that I'm losing participants for today.

Please get back to me as soon as you can - otherwise, I'm afraid that I'm losing data.

[rfreyberg]

Today, I've played around with a bunch of things - and I still can't get the skip to the end to work right. The skip works - but then it won't go to my final thank you screen - the whole program just closes (as if I did control-alt-delete).

It doesn't matter where I place the skip - the program closes even if I put the skip after the first set of videos. The same thing will happen - it will go to the skip but won't go to my thank you screen and the program closes and I don't get the popup saying that they should tell the experimenter that they are finished.

I don't understand why this is happening given that the only thing that I changed is the placement of the skip. Does the skip need to be closer to the end for it to work? That seems a little odd.

Is my data still saved somewhere?

Also, the sample experiment works fine so it's not the program as a whole...and as I mentioned, the experiment works right up until that point - there just seems to be a problem between it connecting from the skip to the end screen.

Thanks!