The Observer XT 12 Quick Start Guide Human

Transcription

The Observer® XT
The neXT generation of observation software
Quick Start Guide | Human Research
Version 12
Innovative solutions for behavioral research
Quick Start Guide
The Observer XT
Version 12
Using The Observer XT
for the study of human behavior
Information in this document is subject to change without notice and does not represent a
commitment on the part of Noldus Information Technology b.v. The software described in
this document is furnished under a license agreement. The software may be used or copied
only in accordance with the terms of the agreement.
Copyright © 2014 Noldus Information Technology b.v. All rights reserved. No part of this
publication may be reproduced, transmitted, transcribed, stored in a retrieval system, or
translated into any other language in whole or in part, in any form or by any means, without
the written permission of Noldus Information Technology b.v.
Documentation: Fabrizio Grieco, Patrick Zimmerman, Leanne Loijens, Olga Krips.
The Observer is a registered trademark of Noldus Information Technology b.v. Other product
names are trademarks of their respective companies.
April 2014
Noldus Information Technology b.v.
International headquarters
Wageningen, The Netherlands
Phone: +31-317-473300
Fax: +31-317-424496
E-mail: [email protected]
For addresses of our other offices and support,
please see our web site www.noldus.com.
1 Up and running quickly
Working with The Observer XT consists of three main steps. These three steps are visible in
the main window of The Observer XT that opens once you have created a project. In step 1
you define all the necessary settings for your observations. In step 2 you collect all you data.
And in step 3 you analyze your data.
To open one of the tabs of The Observer XT overview window, click the folder Setup,
Observations, or Analyses in the Project Explorer on the left side of your screen.
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Up and running quickly
This Quick Start Guide guides you through these main steps. Only the most basic features of
The Observer XT are addressed. Inevitably, some features that may be vital to your
application are not discussed. Where possible, the Reference Manual is referred to for
additional information.
video tutorial
To get you going, you can also watch the video tutorial. You can open this tutorial within The
Observer XT. From the Help menu, select Video Tutorial. Watch it to learn about how to set
up an observational study in The Observer XT.
Up and running quickly
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2 Step 1 - Define all settings
creating a new project
To create a new project, press Ctrl+N or from the File menu select New Project, or click Create
new blank project in the startup window. Then:
1. Create settings for your project.
2. Make your Coding Scheme with everything you want to observe.
3. Define Independent Variables, which are factors that remain constant throughout one
observation, like temperature, or gender and age of your test participants.
Click the option to create the settings for that part.
Observation source
Under Observation source, choose whether you want to observe offline from a video file, or
carry out the observation directly while the behaviors occur. If you carry out a live
observation, you can let The Observer XT simultaneously create a video file. Connect your
camera to the computer with The Observer XT and click the Devices button to select your
camera.
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Step 1 - Define all settings
Observation method
Under Observation method, choose Continuous sampling. You get a full record of the
absolute durations and frequencies of behaviors.
Select one of the other options if you want to score at regular time intervals. You will then
get frequencies of behaviors, not durations.
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create a coding scheme
Subjects
If you study only one person in each observation, do not define subjects in the coding
scheme. Enter their identity in the independent variables list (see page 13).
If you study more than one person in one observation, define their role as subjects in the
coding scheme (see below) and their identity in the independent variables list (see page 13).
Define Subjects in Coding Scheme
You observe multiple persons and observe different people in each observation. Define the
role of your persons as subjects in the coding scheme. For each observation, define the
identity of the persons in the Independent Variables list.
For example, you are interested in the interaction between a manager and an employee. In
each observation you observe a different manager and employee. Define the roles Manager
and Employee as subjects in the Coding Scheme.
Enter the identity of the individual test persons for each observation in the Independent
variables list. See page 13 how to create an independent variables list.
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Behaviors
Define the behaviors that you are interested in and the key codes with which you want to
score. The behaviors must be organized in groups.
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State events and Point events
There are two types of behaviors, State events and Point events. State events are behaviors
that have a duration, like Walking or Playing. Point events do not have a duration, or their
duration is not important. Examples are Answer Yes, or User error..
Mutually exclusive and Start-Stop
There are two types of groups with behaviors. A mutually exclusive group is the easiest to
work with. In a mutually exclusive group the start of a new behavior automatically stops the
previous behavior and always one behavior is active. You only have a key code for the start of
each behavior. If there are gaps between the behaviors, define a behavior like Other behavior,
to make sure always one behavior is active.
If it is not possible to define a mutually exclusive group, or if you only have point Events,
create a Start-stop group. In such a group you define a key code for both the start of a
behavior and its stop. In such a group there may be time periods in which no behavior occurs
or in which behaviors within the same group overlap.
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Modifiers
Optionally define Modifiers. Modifiers define the behaviors more precisely. They can consist
of text (nominal modifiers), or numbers (numerical).
For nominal modifiers, you can calculate for example durations and frequencies. For
numerical modifiers you can calculate additional statistics, like mean values. Since scoring
modifiers requires pressing extra keys, which makes scoring slower, it is recommended not to
define modifiers if it is not necessary.
See below how to define only behaviors instead.
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However, in some cases it is necessary to define modifiers. When you want to calculate
minimum, maximum and mean values of modifiers, you need numerical modifiers. Also the
coding scheme may become impractically large if you define only behaviors and no
modifiers.
If the Modifiers column is not shown in your Coding Scheme, click View Settings on the
upper-right part of your screen and select Modifiers.
To specify for which behaviors you want to score the modifiers, double-click the modifier
group name and select to which behavior the modifier must be linked.
For more information on how to create a Coding Scheme, see Section 3.5 of The
Observer XT Reference Manual.
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independent variables
Independent Variables are factors that can potentially influence the observation, and are
assumed to remain constant for a certain subject (like a test person’s ID) or an observation
session (like temperature). Define the variables that are important for your study (for
example, the experimental treatment or the social group size). Click Add Variable to enter
your Independent Variables.
For more information on Independent Variables, see Section 3.6 of The Observer
XT Reference Manual.
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3 Step 2 - Acquire your data
This chapter guides you through the steps to acquire your data. First, you create an
observation. Then you carry out your observation.
To create a new observation, click Create a new observation in the Observe tab of The
Observer XT overview window.
Give the observation a name and select your video/audio files. Position the video to where
you want to start your observation.
general procedure
If you defined mutually exclusive behaviors, Initial State Events appear in the event log. If
these behaviors are not the ones that are active when you start scoring, change them to
correct ones. You can do this by pressing the key for the correct behaviors. If you have
modifiers linked to your behaviors, score these as well.
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Step 2 - Acquire your data
Press the Start observation button to start observing.
If you chose to enter the Independent Variables before your observation, the Independent
Variables window now opens.
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Enter the values and click OK. Score the observation by pressing the keys of your keyboard.
In the Codes window you can see which of the elements you should score next, Subject,
Behavior or Modifier. Once you scored the subject, the tab Behaviors opens. Similarly, once
you scored behaviors that have modifiers attached to it, the tab Modifiers opens.
To play the video at lower or higher speed, click the Speed down or Speed up button
respectively.
If you noticed you missed an event in the video, you can click the Quick Review button. The
video then jumps back a few seconds and plays the event you missed at a lower speed. Click
the Quick Review button multiple times to jump back more in time
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To review a video fragment multiple times, click the Loop button and set the flags that
appear to the start and end of the fragment. The Loop button is hidden by default. To show it
on the Playback control window, click the Settings button on the toolbar and select Playback
control options. Select the checkbox in front of Show loop button.
To stop the observation, click the Stop observation button.
To show more buttons on the Playback control window, click the Settings button
on the toolbar and select Playback control options.
scoring data in different runs
If you have a large coding scheme, you are generally not able to score everything at once. It is
common that you play the video once for every subject-behavior group combination. After
you finished with one run, do not stop the observation, but go back to the start of your
observation. To do so, click in the first row, that has time 0.00, and click the play button on
the video playback control window. You can now score the next subject - behavior group
combination.
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If you stopped the observation after a run, you have to click the Start-observation button
again to continue with the next run.
If you defined multiple subjects in the Coding Scheme, use the Auto Record Subject feature.
With this feature the subject scored in the last event is automatically scored in the next
event. Run through the video one or more times for one subject. Then run through the video
for the next subject. Once you pressed the key code for that subject, it is automatically scored
for the next events.
To switch on Auto Record Subject, open the Setup menu and select Project Settings. Open the
tab Scoring Options. Select the checkbox in front of Auto-record Subject.
other options
Correcting scoring errors
When you made a mistake, you can edit the event log. Click the cell you want to edit and
press the key for the correct event.
Entering free text
For each event line you can enter up to 1024 characters. For example, to transcribe speech
from an audio file. With the View Settings select Comment. Click the Comment cell in the
event log that applies, and in the Comment window type in or paste your text. Note that free
text is not analyzed, however it can be visualized.
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Finding events
You can search for specific events, for example when you want to correct errors. Press Ctrl+F.
Enter the Subject, Behavior, Modifier and Observation you want to search for and click Find. A
list with the specified events appears. Click the Open event button to jump to that event line
in the event log and the associated position in the video. You can export the events from the
Find window to a text file or to Excel.
For more information on how to carry out an observation, see Chapter 4 of The
Observer XT Reference Manual.
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4 Step 3 - Analyze your data
This chapter guides you through the main steps to analyze your data.
1. If wanted, make a selection of the data you want to analyze.
2. Visualize your data.
3. Analyze your data.
select the data you want to analyze
You may want to make a selection of the data, before you carry out an analysis. For example,
you may want to analyze data for males and females separately. Or you may only want to
analyze certain behaviors, or time fragments.
To make a selection of your data, create a data profile. To do so, in the main Analyze window,
click Select data.
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Step 3 - Analyze your data
Merging data
To group behaviors or modifiers in your analysis, click the Merging button on the Start box of
your Data profile and define your groups. For example, to merge the behaviors Slam, Beat,
and Kick, and analyze them as Aggressive behavior. Click the Add button to create a group and
drag and drop the three behaviors to this group.
The merged group Aggressive behavior in the example below, is treated as one behavior in
the analysis. In the visualization, the merged behaviors are not shown.
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Filtering
Use the filter option, to analyze only some observations, subjects, or behaviors. For example,
to only analyze the behavior Gaze child. Click the box next to Filter Events by Behaviors and
make your selection.
Click OK and drag the box between the Start and the Result box.
To see the result of your selection, click Visualize on the toolbar.
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What is the effect of Filtering?
Filtering gives you only those data you defined in your filter. In the example below the
behavior Gaze child was filtered. Only this behavior is shown in the Visualization.
Analyzing time intervals: Nesting
With Nesting you define a time interval, based on the behavior (or behavior and its
modifiers) of a certain subject. This way you can analyze what other subjects do in these
intervals. For example, you want to know what the child was doing when it gazed at another
child. To define these time intervals, nest over the behavior Gaze child. If you have multiple
subjects in your Coding Scheme, define in which subject the behavior occurred.
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What is the difference between Filtering and Nesting?
Filtering is selecting only certain observations, subjects, or behaviors for further analysis. Use
the filter option if you are only interested in the selected events. In the example below a
filter on the behavior Gaze child was applied.
Nesting is creating time intervals, based on a certain behavior. If you are interested what
other behaviors occur while the child is gazing at another child, nest over this behavior and
define in which subject this behavior occurs. The time fragments when the child was gazing
at another child are selected.
It is also possible to make time intervals based on a combination of behaviors
and time, with Free Interval Selection. For more information on data selection,
see chapter 6 of The Observer XT Reference Manual.
visualization
To visualize your data, on the main Analyze window, click Visualize data.
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Select the observations that you want to visualize. Data from each subject is displayed in a
different plot.
To visualize a selection of the data, define your selection in a data profile and click the
Visualize button on the toolbar.
Always make sure that the correct data profile is active. The active data profile is highlighted
in blue on the left side of your screen.
For more information on Visualizing data, see Section 7.2 of The Observer XT
Reference Manual.
You can make a video of a selection of events. See sections 7.3 to 7.6 in The
Observer XT Reference Manual for more information.
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behavior analysis
If you made data profiles, make sure that the correct one is highlighted on the left side of
your screen. Open the Analyze menu and select Behavior analysis and then New. Next, click
Calculate.
To change the table layout, click the Layout button. Choose how you want to organize the
layout of the analysis result. Double-click Statistics to choose which statistics you want in
your analysis result.
If you want to exclude observations, subjects, or behaviors from your analysis, double-click
the category and de-select some of the items.
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The effect of selecting and deselecting a category
If you select the checkbox in front of Observations, Subject, Behaviors, Independent
Variables, or Result Containers, you get separate analysis results for each item in that
category. For example, if you have four observations and select the checkbox in front of
Observations, you get separate analysis results for each observation.
If you de-select the checkbox, all observations are grouped and you get one analysis result
for all observations together.
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For more information on Behavior Analysis, see Chapter 8 of The Observer XT
Reference Manual.
numerical analysis
A numerical analysis can only be carried out if you have numerical modifiers in your coding
scheme. A numerical analysis gives additional statistics above the ones obtained in the
behavior analysis. For example if you defined Sound level as numerical modifier, you can
calculate the minimum, mean and maximum sound level. The procedure is the same as for
the Behavior Analysis.
For more information on Numerical Analysis, see Chapter 8 of The Observer XT
Reference Manual.
charts
You can make a graphic representation from the results of the behavior analysis and the
numerical analysis. Select the data in the analysis results and click the Charts button on the
toolbar.
Choose the type of chart and customize it by, for example, adding titles. You can save, export
and print the chart.
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lag sequential analysis
You may be interested in what precedes a certain behavior, or what happens after it. For
example, you may want to know how many times a child starts playing after it gazed at a toy.
Or how often functional use was preceded by instruction by the parent. For this purpose,
carry out a Lag Sequential Analysis.
Open the Analyze menu and select Lag Sequential Analysis. Click the Settings button on the
toolbar. Choose whether you want to do a State Lag or a Time Lag analysis (see below).
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Criteria are the first behaviors of a pair, the second ones is called Targets. If you use a Time
lag, choose what to do with criteria, or targets that occur more than once in the specified
time interval.
If you follow more than one subject, you may only be interested in transitions between
behaviors of the same subject. For example, you may want to know how often the behavior
Playing with toy is followed by Destroying toy. If this is the case, select the checkbox Restrict
lag to Subject-Behavior group combinations.
In other cases you may especially be interested how the behavior of one subject affects the
behavior of another subject. You may for example want to know how many times instruction
by the parent is followed by functional use of a toy by the child. If this is the case, make sure
the checkbox Restrict lag to Subject-Behavior group combinations is de-selected.
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Choose whether you want the lags shown as frequencies or probabilities and in the Layout
tab define the layout of your analysis results. In the example below the behavior No verbal
was followed 6 times by Functional use.
For more information on Lag Sequential Analysis, see Chapter 9 of The Observer
XT Reference Manual.
reliability analysis
In a reliability analysis you look whether scoring the same observation several times gives
the same results. You can look at your own consistency as a coder, for example by scoring a
video again every month. Or you can let the same video be scored by different coders and
look whether they score the same.
From the Analyze menu select Reliability Analysis and select the pairs your want to compare.
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Open the Settings tab. Choose the comparison method. With the default comparison
method Frequency/Sequence the frequency and timing of the events is compared. The other
options depend on the comparison method you choose. See Chapter 10 in The Observer XT
Reference Manual for more information on the comparison methods and settings.
The analysis result shows the number of agreements between the observations, number of
disagreements and the two statistics Kappa and Rho with their significance levels. In
general, the closer Kappa and Rho are to 1.0, the better the agreement between the
observations is. For more information on Kappa and Rho, please see Section 10.7 Reliability
Statistics in The Observer XT Reference Manual.
If you want to know what exactly has been scored differently in the observations, click
Confusion Matrix. The numbers in light-blue on the diagonals are agreements. The numbers
outside the diagonal, which are marked with a red circle in the picture on the next page, are
the disagreements.
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To know at which time different events were scored in the observations, click Comparison
list. The disagreements are marked with a red cross. Scroll to this time stamp in the video
and look why different events were scored in the observations. The time stamp of the video is
based on the first observation (left in the table)..
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For more information on Reliability Analysis, see Chapter 10 of The Observer XT
Reference Manual.
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5 Export to other programs
You can export the raw data, a selection of the raw data, or the analysis results. To carry out
a statistical analysis, you generally need to export the results of the behavior or numerical
analysis.
analysis results
Carry out a behavior or numerical analysis. Click the Export button on the toolbar. Choose
the format for the export file.
If you want to import the exported file to SPSS, select the checkbox Merge header rows.
You can also export the raw data or a selection of the raw data. See Chapter 11 of
The Observer XT Reference Manual for more information.
Export to other programs
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6 Back up your data
To back up your data, from the File menu select Make Backup. This makes a zip-file of your
project. Make sure you create a backup at least once a day.
Do not forget to create backups of your videos as well. Store the backups at a safe location,
which is in a different building from The Observer computer.
To open a backup of your project, open the File menu and select Restore Backup. Locate the
file with the name of your project and the extension*.vpb. See step 2 below for the location
of this file.
transferring projects between computers
Also use the File-Make Backup function to copy a project from one computer to another. See
also the figure on the next page.
1. Open the File menu and select Make Backup.
2. Copy the file with the name of your project and the extension .vpb together with the video
and audio files to the other computer.
To look up the default locations of video, audio, and project file, open the File menu,
select Preferences and open the File locations tab, where you can also change these
locations. The backup files are present in the folder ~The Observer XT\Projects. Copy the
files to those folders on the other computer to make sure The Observer XT can locate
them.
3. To open the backup file on the other computer, first insert your license key into a USB port.
Then in The Observer XT open the File menu and select Restore Backup. Locate the *.vpbfile and click Open.
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Back up your data
For more information on creating backups, see the paragraph Backing up a
project in section 11.1 of The Observer XT Reference Manual.
Back up your data
37
7 Technical support
support database
If you encounter a problem using The Observer XT, you can search through hundreds of
entries in a database of questions submitted by our customers to the Noldus support
department with answers by our support staff.
You find the support database at our website (www.noldus.com/customer-support).
help desk
If you have any problems, questions, remarks or comments, please let us know. You can
contact us via our website (www.noldus.com/helpdesk) and fill out a Support Request Form
(preferred), or phone. We offer 24 hour support by help desks in various time zones. You can
also contact us using the The Observer XT. From the Help menu choose Noldus Online and
subsequently Contact Help Desk. If you encounter a problem with the program, you can also
select Report an Issue. This opens a form on our website which is sent to the help desk.
Please check the Reference Manual before contacting our support department. Press F1 to
open the PDF of the Reference Manual, then search for the topic related to what you are
having problems with.
Before you contact Technical Support, please have the following information available. To
find this information, go to the Help menu and select About....:
z
The version number of your copy of the program.
z
The name of the registered user (click User Info).
z
The license number of your copy of our software (click User Info).
z
The help desk may ask for a log file (*.log). You can find this file in the folder
C:\ProgramData\Noldus\The Observer\XT 12\Log.
Please refer to the Contact section on our website (www.noldus.com) for other contact
information.
38
Technical support
8 Keyboard shortcuts
Below are the most commonly used shortcut keys for carrying out and reviewing an
observation. You find a complete list of available shortcut keys in Appendix C “Keyboard
Shortcuts” of The Observer XT Reference Manual.
observation
New observation
Start observation
Stop observation
project
Save project
Make backup
Keyboard shortcuts
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playback control
Play forward
Pause
Play backward
Speed up
Speed down
Jump to begin
Jump to end
Step forward
Step backward
Quick review
Loop
Loop start
Loop end
40
Keyboard shortcuts

The Observer XT 12 Quick Start Guide Human

Transcription

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