Lesson 6 - Analyzing case variables using drag and drop
You have already learned how to analyze trial variables. This lesson introduces a new type of variable: case variables. As with trial variables, results will be written to a scrollsheet with one column per variable. However, this time Wintrack will not report a result for every individual trial, but calculate the average over a range of trials you indicate. The scrollsheet will have only one row per case analyzed. You could run the analysis using menus or toolbar buttons as you have learned in previous lessons. But there is a more efficient way to do it: file drag and drop.
Starting the analysis...
- Select Close All from Wintrack's Window menu to close all open documents.
- Next, you must open your WINTRACK folder, so you can examine its content. You may achieve this using Windows™ Explorer. Arrange the folder window and the Wintrack program window on your screen in such a way that the folder window is in the foreground without completely covering the Wintrack program window.
- In the WINTRACK folder, select the sample files SWIM1.WTR through SWIM4.WTR. Drag the selected files to the Wintrack program window and drop them onto any part of it. A menu pops up from which you should select the option Analyze…
- The Open Case Document dialog pops up. You can specify how Wintrack should display the case documents as they are opened for analysis, the other fields in the dialog are grayed. Select the option minimize and click Ok.
- Next, the Analyze Case Document dialog
pops up:
- In the field labeled Variable definition, select the option from predefined list. Select the predefined variables tim through aer and make sure that the Time window is set to from begin, duration 120, offset 0.
- In the field labeled Report, select the option merge.
- Under Trials and Blocks, set block size to 6 and range to all. This tells Wintrack to consider all trials, to group them in consecutive blocks of 6 trials, and to calculate the average of each variable for every trial block. Because there are 30 trials in each case document and you have selected 5 variables, Wintrack will create (30/6)x5=25 variable columns.
- Click Ok.
- Wintrack creates a scrollsheet and analyses the selected variables
for all dropped case documents successively adding the results to the
scrollsheet.
Note that the columns of the scrollsheet are labeled with the variable names plus the trial ranges to which the values apply. Now let's add more cases to the analysis.
Adding more cases to the analysis...
- Without closing the newly created scrollsheet, bring the WINTRACK folder window again to the foreground. Select the sample documents SECOND1.WTR through SECOND5.WTR, drag them to the Wintrack program window and drop them onto any part of it. A menu pops up from which you should select the option Analyze…
- As Wintrack displays the Open Case Document dialog, simply click Ok to use the same option as last time. Since you want to calculate the same variables as with the previous set of cases, also press Ok as the Analyze Case Document dialog pops up.
- Wintrack processes the second set of cases and adds the results to
the scrollsheet.
Now, let us assume you want more detailed information on the escape time and swim path length during the first day of the experiment (trials 1-6) and for the first day after relocation of the goal (trials 19-24). For these two days you want to get results for every pair of trials.
Adding more variables to the analysis...
- Without closing the scrollsheet, bring the WINTRACK folder window again to the foreground. Select the sample documents SWIM1.WTR through SWIM4.WTR and SECOND1.WTR through SECOND5.WTR, drag them to the Wintrack program window and drop them onto any part of it. A menu pops up from which you should again select the option Analyze…
- As Wintrack displays the Open Case Document dialog, simply click Ok to use the same option as last time.
- The Analyze Case Document dialog
pops up:
- Select the predefined variables tim and pth and make sure that the Time window is still set to from begin, duration 120, offset 0.
- Under Trials and Blocks, set block size to 2 and range to 1-6,19-24 (without typing any white spaces between the numbers).
- Leave all other options as they are and click Ok.
- Wintrack processes the dropped cases and adds the necessary columns
to the scrollsheet.
You have now been introduced to most of the basic Wintrack functions. It is now safe to start using Wintrack on your own, consulting on-line help as necessary. As an alternative, you may also proceed to the next few lessons of the tutorial which introduce more advanced features. The first of them, Lesson 7 - Custom analysis and custom setup files, introduces the basics of custom data analysis in Wintrack.
