Check for Careless Errors¶

Coders make two kinds of errors. One kind of error is a careless error such as a typo or its equivalent. The coder types a letter that is not a legal option; the coder forgets to mark an offset time; the coder mistakenly inserts an extra cell or numbers trials out of sequence. Coders are human and even the most diligent coder will inadvertently make careless errors. These kinds of errors are not serious and can be easily fixed if they are caught before the coder shuts the file and checks inter-rater reliability.

Consistent use of codes is important for your analyses, but Datavyu will allow you to enter any value you choose. Thus, you need a way to check that your nomenclature is consistently applied within and across video files, that cells were inserted correctly, and that each cell has an appropriate onset and offset time. In Datavyu, you can do this by writing a script to check for careless errors. You should ensure that all of the codes are legal values (according to the coding manual). Check that all of the durations are within acceptable limits (typically negative values are impossible). Check that all of the coded values follow basic logic. If the child did not touch an object, then there can be no object code for that cell. If the child’s latency to cross the cliff was 0s, then the child could not have avoided going over the cliff or explored before going over the cliff (because a latency of 0 means there was no time to explore and avoidance reflects the total possible trial time). Thus, your error-checking script will identify typos, impossible relations, and out of range values. In Datavyu, you can even determine the out of range values online based on just-coded files with a script using the R-interface.