You've taken the Cook's tour? Goodonya (!).

 

We've got some examples coming up, but first how about a quick overview of how Lertap works?

 

Lertap is used to analyse the responses people have given to a test or survey.  Lertap is designed to work with fixed-choice items (items = questions).  For a test, fixed-choice usually means true/false or multiple choice.  For a survey, fixed-choice means that the answers people can give to a question have been listed, and enumerated.  For example, a survey might ask people if they think beer is a good thirst quencher on a hot summer's day; people can answer 1 (strongly disagree, a foolish response); 2 (disagree); 3 (undecided); 4 (agree); or 5 (strongly agree).

 

The answers people give are placed in the Data worksheet.  Each row in the Data sheet corresponds to the answers of one person.

 

Having responses recorded in the Data worksheet is good and necessary before results can be obtained, but it's not all that's required.  Some instructions are also needed.  Instructions?  For whom?  For Lertap.

 

Lertap is not smart enough to be able to look at the Data sheet, and figure out what's what without your help.  You've got to tell Lertap which columns in the Data worksheet have the item responses you want it to look at.  If the items are from a test, you have to tell Lertap what the right answer to each item is.  If the items are from a survey, on the other hand, you have to tell Lertap to forget about having to have a correct answer for each question -- there aren't any.

 

You tell Lertap these things by putting your instructions in another worksheet called the CCs sheet, using a special control language.

 

Once you've got the responses in the Data sheet, and your Lertap instructions in the CCs sheet, away you go ... you just follow the same steps seen in the Cook's tour.  Could life be simpler?  Page on ... have a look at some examples (there are more in the manual).

 

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Related tidbit:

 

For more how-it-works insights, see: Lertap's Output.