On using E-DataAid: WAS: Converting an Edat file into either a .xls or .txt file

Fri Feb 15 15:58:27 UTC 2013

I too will beat the drum for E-Merge & 
E-DataAid.  For some years now I have said that 
it is almost worth getting E-Prime for its superb 
data handling facilities alone!  No other 
psychology programming platform compares in this 
regard, no matter what other shortcomings E-Prime may have.

Sadly, it took me many years to discover this -- 
like many, I too initially treated E-DataAid as 
nothing more than a tool to export data to Excel 
or SPSS.  I did not realize the full value myself 
until a lab asked me to give them a tutorial on 
E-Merge & E-DataAid, and when I finally went 
through the manuals I was surprised!

So work through *all* of the E-Merge and 
E-DataAid tutorials in the User's Guide and 
Reference Guide that come with E-Prime, you will 
find it *well* worth your trouble.  You might 
also look through Michiel et al.'s "The 
E-Primer".  Finally (shameless self-promotion 
here), I devote an entire lesson of my online 
video course to just this topic, with a guided 
exercise to show much of what Michiel described.

-----
David McFarlane
E-Prime training 
online:  http://psychology.msu.edu/Workshops_Courses/eprime.aspx
Twitter:  @EPrimeMaster (https://twitter.com/EPrimeMaster)

At 2/15/2013 10:03 AM Friday, Paul Groot wrote:
>You're right. E-DataAid features are often overlooked.
>
>Perhaps I was not clear about Excel: I meant 
>that Excel has serious problems with many rows 
>or columns. Although I think newer versions of 
>Excel do a much better job now, so this might not be a problem for many users.
>
>paul
>
>On 13 February 2013 14:27, Cognitology 
><<mailto:mspape at cognitology.eu>mspape at cognitology.eu> wrote:
>
>Hi,
>
>If you’re not YET doing it, I urge you to have 
>another look at what is possible with e-DataAid. 
>The reason is that I know many students 1) know 
>SPSS fairly well, and a bit of Excel, and try to 
>avoid E-***. Not saying that counts for you as 
>well. Indeed, this is a bit of a shot in the 
>dark, but with such sentences as “I have a large 
>number of subject edat files (500+) and I like 
>the column/row format that the Excel export 
>option that E-DataAid uses so that I can easily 
>convert the data into a format I like using spss 
>syntax”, it’s difficult to avoid guessing! You 
>might want to say something about what you’re 
>planning to do, but in its absence, let’s have 
>an example from my own life, and maybe it helps?
>
>·         What I like is having a good amount of 
>Repeated Measures ANOVA style formatted columns, 
>say, RTs of 2x4 conditions, one row per subject. 
>For SPSS. What I have is 500 .edats. Arggh, right?
>
>1.       We merge all files to one big .emrg, which we then open in .edat
>
>2.       We filter out those RTs we are not 
>interested in, say, the ones in which an error 
>occurs. Also, I don’t like trials 1:20.
>
>3.       Now, we go to analyze, drag Subject to 
>the Row, and any type of between-subject variable (sex, age, etc).
>
>4.       Then drag ConditionP1vs2 to columns, 
>drag ConditionQ1vs2vs3vs4 to columns. Drag the 
>critical RT thing to the Data bit. Press Run.
>
>5.       So, we should see a nice table of at 
>least 500x8. Oops, it’s got two decimals.. why? 
>Make that 4. Select all of it, copy the bunch to excel.
>
>6.       Inside excel, underneath the two rows 
>with variables (rows A and B), insert a new row 
>(say C). Enter the wonderful formula =A&”_”&B and drag it all across row C.
>
>7.       Select row C, copy, go stand in an 
>empty bit, paste special: values only, and 
>transpose. Copy that, go to SPSS, paste in 
>variables: now, that’s descriptive indeed.
>
>8.       Copy all the values over to SPSS (but 
>you’ll have to reassign string values from numeric for some columns).
>
>
>
>These 8 steps, lengthy as they may seem, take me 
>about 2 minutes, and I think it’s a great workflow.
>
>TLDR? Try E-DataAid, it’s ridiculously simple, 
>really rocks, and SPSS is best avoided as they 
>make it slower and buggier with every next release.
>
>
>
>PS: Paul, I find Excel not at all slow with 
>large data-files? Much faster than SPSS, at 
>least, or at least it has been between excel 
>2007 and 2010 (2013 beta was running very slow 
>here); it does not cope very well with large and 
>lengthy formulas that need repeated 
>recalculation and take up more than hundreds of MBs, though.
>
>
>
>Best,
>
>Michiel
>
>
>
>
>
>From: 
><mailto:e-prime at googlegroups.com>e-prime at googlegroups.com 
>[mailto:e-prime at googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Daniel
>Sent: 11. February 2013 23:02
>To: <mailto:e-prime at googlegroups.com>e-prime at googlegroups.com
>Subject: Re: Converting an Edat file into either a .xls or .txt file
>
>
>
>Yeah, I will probably just end up splitting it 
>using a SPSS syntax script (I am not very 
>familiar with Matlab yet), it will be a little 
>bit tedious but faster than doing it manually.
>
>
>
>Thanks for the input.
>
>On Friday, February 8, 2013 6:49:09 PM UTC-5, Daniel wrote:
>
>I have a large number of subject edat files 
>(500+) and I like the column/row format that the 
>Excel export option that E-DataAid uses so that 
>I can easily convert the data into a format I 
>like using spss syntax. Is there a faster way to 
>convert all of these subject files into the 
>excel format, some sort of way to iterate over 
>all files in a folder, instead of having to open 
>each one and export them separately?
>
>
>
>Thanks.

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "E-Prime" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to e-prime+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to e-prime at googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.