Project - Assessing Physical Attractiveness with FactorWiz

Project - An Assessment of
Physical Attractiveness with FactorWiz
* Page 2 *

Setting up the 3-Factor design for our study:

4) Since we have 3 factors, the row by column setup isn't as clear cut. We actually need two of the factors represented on either the Row or Column factor. That is, we need to go ahead and cross two of our factors. So, if we wanted to cross Height and Skin Tone, we would enter the following text for the different levels of the Row factors: "Short and Fair-skinned"; "Short and Dark-skinned"; "Tall and Fair-skinned"; "Tall and Dark-skinned". We would label the Row Factor Name "Height and Skin tone" Then, add the levels for the Appearance factor as the levels of the Column factor, labeling the Col Factor Name "Appearance". Here's what it would look like:

The setup in FactorWiz:

         So, by representing more than one factor on each level, you are only constrained by the number of levels you can specify in the form.

         Once you have the information set, just click the Make the Form button at the bottom of the page. FactorWiz automatically creates the questionnaire in a web page, with 4 practice trials and some demographic questions.
         If you want more than 1 random ordering of the stimuli, click Make the Form again and it will produce another page, with a different ordering of variables. Just save this with a different variable name than the first web page. If you want to alter which variable gets represented first, however, you'll need to alter the information in the form. That is, the Row variable is always presented first.
        If you click the Display button, it will show you the questionnaire.

What the stimuli look like in the questionnaire:

        Respondents will enter there responses in the textbox next each listing of stimuli. However, we need to specify what question they're responding to.

Specifying the Question/Response option:

5) At this point, we've got things set up for the stimuli, but we need to specify what we want to assess. We want to have respondents rate how attractive they would find someone with the particular set of characteristics and we'll have them rate the attractiveness of individuals on a 9-point scale.
If you haven't already done so, click the Make the Form button. You'll see the HTML needed for the web page appear in the HTML window. Do down a few lines to the line "(put your instructions here)", erase that text, and replace it with the text between the horizontal lines below:

We're investigating what factors make a person attractive. 
Below you're going to read various combinations of characteristics a 
person might possess. For each list of traits below, please decide 
how physically attractive you would find that person (i.e., in the 
sense that you might date him/her). Then, rate how attractive you 
would find that combination of traits and, using the scale below, 
enter your rating for that combination of traits in the textbox. 
 
7 = Extremely Attractive 
6 = Highly Attractive 
5 = Very Attractive 
4 = Somewhat Attractive 
3 = Kind of Attractive 
2 = A little Attractive 
1 = Not at all Attractive

This text gives us the instructions, the response scale, and the HTML needed to space things out (that's what the is for).

Finishing Up and Saving:

6) Once the instructions and the rating scale are entered, you're all set. Click the Display button and you'll see the web page with your questionnaire. From the FactorWiz page, click the Save button. All the text in the HTML window will be highlighted so you can copy it into a text editor (e.g., MS Notebook) to save it. IMPORTANT: Make sure to change the .txt extension to .html.
Now, all you need to do is post the web site on a server. When responses are collected, they'll be saved to a generic database housed at CSU-Fullerton. You can visit the web site and download your data. View the completed questionnaire here.

Taking a look at the data:

7) If you haven't already done so, open up the web page, complete the survey, and click the Submit button.

8) Once it's completed, click here to download the data file (Note: If you get prompted for a user name and password, you can log in as an Anonymous user to access the data. Locate all lines with the Exp Short Name for your questionnaire in it and that's the data for your questionnaire.

~ Previous Page Next Page ~

If you have any problems with the exercise, please let me know
Last updated: 8/14/03

The setup in FactorWiz:
	So, by representing more than one factor on each level, you are only constrained by the number of levels you can specify in the form.

Once you have the information set, just click the Make the Form button at the bottom of the page. FactorWiz automatically creates the questionnaire in a web page, with 4 practice trials and some demographic questions. If you want more than 1 random ordering of the stimuli, click Make the Form again and it will produce another page, with a different ordering of variables. Just save this with a different variable name than the first web page. If you want to alter which variable gets represented first, however, you'll need to alter the information in the form. That is, the Row variable is always presented first. If you click the Display button, it will show you the questionnaire.

What the stimuli look like in the questionnaire:
	Respondents will enter there responses in the textbox next each listing of stimuli. However, we need to specify what question they're responding to.