MediaLab skipping items (case 13988)

[jill.brown]

Hello!

I was hoping to get some assistance on an issue I've been having with MediaLab 2012 that I can't seem to solve. I have an experiment file that is composed of a series of questionnaires. It is nothing fancy, some likert scales and free response items. The problem is when the program gets to a certain item (#22), it then skips over the next 100 questions. There is no skip logic in that question. Here is what I have tried so far:

1. Recreating the question that was causing problems to see if there was some residual code. This worked until we ran the program for the 5th participant, then the question started skipping again.

2. Retyping the entire questionnaire with no copy-pasting. Did not help.

3. Uninstalling and Reinstalling MediaLab. Worked twice, then started skipping items.

The error does not happen on every computer either, but we have seen it occur on more than one computer. The computers are PCs running Windows 7.

Any ideas you might have would be much appreciated.

[jason_reed]

Hi jill.brown!

If you could upload a copy of your .que and .exp files, I'd be happy to take a look at them. And are you using a responses.xls file as part of your study?

[jill.brown]

Hi Jason!

The file is attached. Thus far, it is happening when running all of the conditions; conditions 1 and 3 look very similar until you get to the end while condition 99 has completely different items.

Thanks!
Jill

[jason_reed]

Thanks for the files. Could you tell me in which of the .que files you sent the unexpected skipping occurs? Anything to help me narrow down the problem areas is appreciated.

[jill.brown]

Sure! Self-Other Sleep Study - Pre; Self-Other Sleep Study - Impersonal; Self-Other Sleep Study Post.

[jason_reed]

Also, do you mean to only have the single questionnaire "Self Other Sleep Study Pre.que" in condition 1 and the single quesitonnaire "Self Other Sleep Study Pre - Impersonal.que" in condition 3? If you want participants to answer any items in a particular condition, all the .que files containing those questionnaires should be in the same .exp file with the same condition number.

[jill.brown]

Yes, having the single questionnaires in those conditions is intentional.

[jason_reed]

It looks like some of the items in different .que files have the same names. What happens if you give each item its own unique name?

[jill.brown]

Many of the same questions are asked across conditions so I'd rather not have to manually line up the variables later. Additionally, this would not explain why those 100 questions would be skipped when we clear the data file and just run condition 1. I'm happy to try your solution, however having multiple questionnaires with the same variable names has not been a problem for us in the past.

[jason_reed]

I understand. My suggestion was based on one of the first things I noticed and as something to try while I continue to work with the files you sent. Please do let me know if you make any more discoveries as I work on my end.