DirectRT file merge (case 404)
DirectRT file merge (case 404)
Can someone please explain in clear english how the file merging via directRT works? I do not understand the help function... I have all these separate DirectRT IAT files for each participant in what is a csv format. How do I get this from its current state into an analysable SPSS file. Please help :-(
It can be quite a shock to have multiple long data files (where each participant has multiple rows of data) come out of DRT when you're probably used having just one short data file (one line per participant) with everyone in it. What the filemerge does is take some of the difficult work out of preparing your data files for the change from "many and long" to "one and short."
First, it will take all of those separate .csv files and put them into one .csv file. You can select the option (under Options) to skip the header row after the first file. I like to do this here in the file merge because it saves some time with SPSS later.
Once you have your merged .csv file (and saved it), it is still long; that is, each participant still has multiple lines of data. This is where SPSS comes in. Depending on your version of SPSS (I hope that it's newer, this has become so much easier in newer versions) open SPSS, and go to Open->Data. Select the .csv file you just made. Say "no" to the predefined format question. Say "yes" to the delimited question and "yes" to the question about variables (this is your header row, and remember we asked for just one at the top). Your first case of data is for line 2 (because line 1 was your header row).
You then want to select that a specific number of lines represents a case. Don't remember how many lines of data there are? Go back to one of your single participant .csv files for reference. Remember, you aren't including the header row in this count. Enter that number.
Select your delimiter (,) and then let SPSS guide you the rest of the way. You'll get to preview how the data will look, rename variables if necessary, skip importing anything you won't need, etc.
When you're finished, you should end up with the short data set you desire, with one row per participant, and all of your participants in one file, ready for analysis. And, I highly recommend saving the syntax to do this, especially if you reuse your input file in the future.
I'll just throw in too that this is a great thread worth checking out (with regard to IAT data analysis)...
http://www.empirisoft.com/support/showthread.php?t=836
