Sequence Analysis using Sequence Viewer Yfke Ongena Workshop on Sequence analysis Wivenhoe House, University of Essex 15 February 2007

Overview What is Sequence Viewer How are data organized in Sequence Viewer Overview of the possibilities of the program Demonstration of sequential analyses

Sequence Viewer Developed by Wil Dijkstra (VU Amsterdam) Managing, coding and analyzing sequential data Sequences of ‘events’ With Survey interviews as data: A sequence contains one Q-A sequence The events in one sequence are all utterances concerning one question

Screenshot of Sequence Viewer I: First, how many persons live in your household, counting all adults and including yourself? R: Four Transcription Coding field Main menu Audio/ video files

Organisation of data in Sequence Viewer Sequence variables (aggregate, numerical) Event codes (alpha numerical) Event variables (numerical) Keys (links in text or sound/video)

Event codes in Sequence Viewer Variables that ‘describe’ events Event can be coded with 1 to 9 variables 62 different values (A-Z, a-z, 0-9) and — for uncoded values Event code = succession of codes on the variables

Event codes in Sequence Viewer (cd.) Example: 3 code variables (‘Actor’, ‘Exchange’ and ‘Adequacy’) Then event codes can be : ‘IQA’,’IQI’, ‘RAI’, etc. Analyses on individual values or complete codes Results of analysis can be converted to Sequence variables

Event variables in Sequence Viewer Unlimited number of variables (unless exceeding 4GB data file size) Examples: Onset and offset time of events Number of words in an utterance Speech rate

Keys in Sequence Viewer Text keys or Time keys Conversion to sequence variable: Nr of times the key occurs in a sequence Nr of words within keys with same keyword Conversion to event variable: Nr of times the key occurs in each event Nr of words within keys Conversion to code variable: Whether or not/ which key occurs in event

Keys in Sequence Viewer

Other aspects of Sequence Viewer Continuing development Requests can relatively quickly be granted Beta versions  bugs… Freeware, but Macintosh only

Sequential analysis in Sequence Viewer Cannell et al. (1968) “reciprocal cue searching process” in interviewer-respondent interaction Brenner (1982) “action-by-action analysis” Hill & Lepkowski (1996) “behavioural contagion”

Sequential analysis: comparing general patterns Computing agreement between sequences Sequence 1: IQA RAA IPX Sequence 2: IQA RAM IPX (DT delta Agreement = ) Counting the number of different sequences (e.g., paradigmatic/ non-paradigmatic sequences) Clustering sequences

Matrix analysis Transitions between successive events Lag 1 = immediate succession of an event: Given event  Target event Lag 2 = one other events intervenes Given event  (other event)  Target event Lag 3 = two other events intervene, etc. Maximum number of lags is 9

Next and previous analysis Determine target events based on given events E.g., what are the consequences of a suggestive probe Determine given events based on target events E.g., what are the causes of a suggestive probe Frequencies & expected frequencies Proportions per sequence variable

Demonstration of analyses in Sequence Viewer Simplified version of Multivariate Coding Scheme Three variables: Actor: I = Interviewer, R = Respondent Exchange: Q = Question, A = Answer, P = Perception, C = Comment, R = Request Adequacy: A = Adequate, I = Inadequate, x = Does not apply

Let’s turn to the Sequence Viewer Program