Once you have done your experiment, you want to look at your data. Here are some tips.

You can do some basic analysis in the website, but it is recommended to use a statistics or spreadsheet program for data analysis.
The software package R is completely free, but takes some effort to learn! The spreadsheet program LibreOffice Calc is of high quality and free, and it works nearly identical to that other well known spreadsheet program.

Importing a data file into your software

All data are saved in text format. Use your favorite program to import the text data.

Data are saved in text format, and numbers are separated by spaces. That means that there is no fixed format, and that the deliminator or separator is the character "space".

  • In Excel

    • Open file, now you will get a dialog window, select "text files"

    • Now you will have a "text import wizard"

    • In the wizard, select "delimited" and click "next"

    • In the wizard, select the "space" delimited only

    • In the wizard, select the "general" data format (although others might work, depending on your data)

  • In LibreOffice Calc

    • Almost like in Excel, except that delimiters are now called "separators"

    • Select space as the only separator, ignore everything else, and open

  • In SPSS

    • From "File" menu, select, "Open data" and select file type text files

    • Now you get an importer wizard as well, but SPSS is smart in recognizing the data file

    • Note that the delimiter used by PsyToolkit is the "space", and that there are NO variable names at the top of the file

  • In R

    • Simply type: mydatafile = read.table("datafilename.txt")

Distinguish between analyzing single data files and group data

In experimental cognitive psychology, researchers typically collect data from a number of participants and combined the data. That is, that typically take the average score (e.g., average response time or error rate) of each participant in each condition, and analyze those data further.

If each participant carries out the same conditions, you mostly likely want to carry out a "repeated measures" analysis on the dependent variable.

Alternatively, you can analyze the data of individual participants in more detail before entering their data into the group analysis.

How further

Further details on how to do such analyses are part of statistics courses, and these would no longer be PsyToolkit specific. Let me know if you would be interested in more details by sending me an email: psytoolkit@gmx.com.