URGENT help needed! : Object amount limit?

[Michiel Spape]

Hi all,
Possibly, you want every question in its own column (i.e. one row per subject), rather than row? That is, I agree it's difficult to conceive how you get eprime to NOT get one row per subject, unless you're trying really hard :)
 
Anyway, I'd agree to most of this, but am sort of tenacious (or, thick) when it comes to stopping whatever useless thing I'm doing, myself, so if you want to, I don't think it's actually impossible to get your questions into the one slide. Yet, I fail to see why your questionnaire object would be impossible. Say, you have
- Two lists, for two questionnaires. List1, MichsMonsterQuestionnaire, has 2000 questions, List2, about 20. Attributes:
['Question', 'AllowableResp', 'AllowableResponseInEnglish', 'QuestionNumber'], you fill them up with 2000 and 20 allowable responses and questionnumbers, and questions. Write down the whole question, including carriage returns (just write \n), despite the obvious discomfort for not being able to read them well. Otherwise, just write them all in excel and copy them. AllowableResp has whatever the participant is to answer with, say, yn for yes or no. AllowableResponseInEnglish has things like "Please press y if you Agree, and N if you don't.". Using the mouse and modern clicking operations is too difficult to go into now. Randomize the list Because You Can :)
- One procedure, with one TextDisplay. TextDisplay has infinite duration, allowable response [AllowableResp], Text [Question]\n[AllowableResponseInEnglish] (yes, all that from [Q.. to ish]). Log Response and RT (because you use E-Prime). 

Done! Bit tricky to get your different responsetypes neatly into good data, but the above procedure shouldn't take much longer than me typing this email. 
As for other software... well, it's not exactly free, but Microsoft Access (included in office) or Excel should work, and few universities don't have it (then again, it's really cheap if you're a student). 

Cheers,
Mich


Michiel Spapé
Research Fellow
Perception & Action group
University of Nottingham
School of Psychology
www.cognitology.eu


-----Original Message-----
From: e-prime at googlegroups.com [mailto:e-prime at googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of liwenna
Sent: 27 August 2010 14:24
To: E-Prime
Subject: Re: URGENT help needed! : Object amount limit?

Check the datafile of the script I sent you through e-mail... all the
items are shown in the same object, but each item has it's own row in
the edat file... that's how e-prime works by default.
What I think you mean is that each questionnaire needs it's own
object... yes that often is true. If you're not really using
questionnaires but mostly single questions with each having their own
answer format etc.... I would really urge you to look elsewhere
because if you have to create separate slides for each question..
that's really just not worth it.

Have a look at surveymonkey for instance. It's web based. A free trial
is available that can collect up to 100 or so respondents. As a
research group we have a paid account that we share between all people
that use it. For simple questionnairing it's far more easy to use then
e-prime... you do need to collect on a internet-connected pc... (as
opposed, I guess, to most university lab pc's :) ).



On Aug 27, 3:11 pm, dpschpak <dpsch... at gmail.com> wrote:
> First, I absolutely agree with you both. This was my first time
> working with EPrime so I thought that maybe I was wrong about feeling
> that way about doing this, but apparently I'm not. And for the record,
> my professor has never used EPrime before, she just heard from someone
> that it could be used for questionnaire purposes. So no, she doesn't
> really know what she is doing with this, I had to learn it for her.
> But I digress...I had previously made separate experiments for each
> questionnaire, but given that the output would vary in number of rows
> and such, she decided that it would be easier to transfer into SAS if
> each question were it's own object, therefore one row of data in the
> output file. The response methods differ between and within these
> questionnaires. Some are Yes/No, some ask for the subject to select a
> number or letter corresponding to their answer, some questions ask for
> typed out answers.
> On a side note, EPrime is a program that is supplied to us through our
> department for free, which may also be why she choose to use it for
> this reason. What other programs would be better suited for this
> purpose?
> Also, I will definitely submit my question to PST and post their
> response, I'm not at work today but I wanted to just check in on this.
>
> On Aug 27, 4:28 am, Michiel Spape <Michiel.Sp... at nottingham.ac.uk>
> wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> > Also, it needs to be said: why on earth does every question needs to be its own object? Here's the real question: does your professor mean 'every question needs to be a different instance' or 'every question needs to be a different object'? In E-Prime and in every object-oriented question, the latter makes absolutely no sense. To put it differently, every question you will ask makes use of different instances of words; but every word is not a NEW object; it's a new instance of the object 'word'. You can conceive how difficult it would be for a human to generate a new 'word' on the spot complete with new phonemes and different guttural sounds!
> > So the point is: you have ONE textdisplay with the text saying merely [TheQuestion], ONE attribute "TheQuestion" in a list which [TheQuestion] refers to and 1000s of rows (if you must use E-Prime anyway and choose to disregard David's comments - that I should mention I support and second, by the way) in which TheQuestion is each time a new question. Thus, your ONE textdisplay can show 1000s of questions. What exactly would be the benefit (apart from fulfilling an intense desire to make both the student and computer work very hard?) by using 1000s of objects?
>
> > In defence of people using E-Prime for questionnaires, I would like to add the following: sometimes it *is* useful to use E-Prime for things it isn't used to, because the rest of the experiment does require it. Personally, I commonly add a handedness questionnaire to my experiments, basically so that it makes it really easy to, later on, combine the experimental and subjective data. I know questionnaires are much easier to make in just about every other way, but I can be really flaky when it comes to combining data, for example, using two different types of codes for participants (p201 and n1 often being the same person, for instance). Counselling is expensive, though, so I just try to live with myself and recognising the problem, just use E-Prime for both types of data!  
> > Cheers,
> > Mich
>
> > Michiel Spapé
> > Research Fellow
> > Perception & Action group
> > University of Nottingham
> > School of Psychologywww.cognitology.eu
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: e-prime at googlegroups.com [mailto:e-prime at googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of David McFarlane
> > Sent: 26 August 2010 22:10
> > To: e-prime at googlegroups.com
> > Subject: Re: URGENT help needed! : Object amount limit?
>
> > Stock reminder:  1) I do not work for PST.  2) PST's trained staff
> > takes any and all questions athttp://support.pstnet.com/e%2Dprime/support/login.asp, and they
> > strive to respond to all requests in 24-48 hours (although current
> > estimates are more like 10 days) -- this is pretty much their
> > substitute for proper documentation, so make full use of it.  3) If
> > you do get an answer from PST Web Support, please extend the courtesy
> > of posting their reply back here for the sake of others.
>
> > That said, here is my take...
>
> > You may indeed have hit a limit on the number of objects that E-Prime
> > can handle, that is a lot of objects and an odd use of E-Prime.  But
> > you should contact PST Web Support to make sure, and then please post
> > back here with the answer.
>
> > But now, as is my wont, I will address the larger unaddressed
> > issue.  Does your professor know what they are doing?  Have they ever
> > done anything like this themselves in E-Prime?  E-Prime makes a very
> > poor tool for just running questionnaires, especially when you have
> > no need for millisecond timing.  Many better tools exist for this purpose.
>
> > And as far as the demand to finish by the end of next week, too many
> > researchers hold unrealistic expectations for the world, their staff
> > & students, and their technology.  Some people just need a reality
> > check -- see my signature quote below.  Have your professor give me a
> > phone call and I will personally give them a stern talking to.
>
> > -- David McFarlane, Professional Faultfinder
> > "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over
> > public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."  (Richard Feynman,
> > Nobel prize-winning physicist)
>
> > dpschpak wrote:
> > >I am trying to construct an experiment of many questionnaires, and my
> > >Prof wants each question to be it's own object and for it to all be in
> > >one experiment. Given the nature of these questionnaires that will
> > >require hundreds (possibly breaking into 1000+) of TextDisplays,
> > >InLines, and Labels. I've been adding TextDisplays and received this
> > >error message:
>
> > >Unable to get Toolbox item.
>
> > >I can't seem to add any more TextDisplays. Have I reached some sort of
> > >object limit?
> > >She wants me to finish this by the end of next week so I need help
> > >ASAP. Anyone ever have this problem?
>
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