qmethod (version 1.3.0)

make.cards: Q methodology: produce printable cards for Q study with ID and full item wording

Description

Creates cards for administering a Q study. Full item wordings are printed on the front of business cards and item IDs on the back.

Usage

make.cards(
  	 q.set,
    study.language = NULL,
    paper.format = "AveryZweckformC32010.Rnw",
    output.pdf = TRUE,
    manual.lookup = NULL,
    wording.font.size = NULL,
    file.name = "QCards",
    babel.language = NULL
    )

Arguments

q.set

A matrix with handles as row names ("q-is-great", for example), languages (if applicable) in columns, as produced by build.q.set.

study.language

A character vector of length 1. Must be one of the languages from the column names in the specified q.set (which will be the same as the respective Q concourse object). Defaults to NULL, in which case the first column from

paper.format

A character vector of length 1, choosing among available templates of business card sheets. Defaults to the only currently available "AveryZweckformC32010.Rnw". Must include file extension of template.

output.pdf

Logical. If TRUE, function invokes knit2pdf to create a PDF in the workspace. If FALSE, function invokes knit to return only a *.TEX in the workspace, may be preferable if no http://www.latex

manual.lookup

A matrix with handles (same as in build.q.set, import.q.concourse) as row names, and arbitrary, unique identifying strings in any of the colum

wording.font.size

A character vector of length 1 to set the font size of the full item wording on the cards. Defaults to NULL in which case the default font size 12pt is used. Only http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX/Fonts#Sizing_text{stand

file.name

A character vector of length 1 to set the filename without file extension. Defaults to QCards.

babel.language

A character vector of length 1 to set the babel language for appropriate hyphenation, special letters and other international support as provided by the https://www.ctan.org/pkg/babel{babel LaTeX package}. Only available babel options are

Value

• Writes a *.PDF file or its source *.TEX file to the working directory ready for printout.

Details

Preparing cards with full items and IDs quickly becomes cumbersome if a study is done several times or if items change frequently. Participants require well-printed, well-designed cards for their sorting task, ideally on heavier paper. Cards should include shorthand, unique identifiers to simplify later data entry.

This function prepares a properly typeset *.PDF (or *.TEX source), where items are printed on readily-available business card templates, from which individual cards can be easily broken out.

The function prints the full item wording on the right column of any page, and the identifier (ID) on the left column. If templates are duplex printed with the same page on the front and back, and in proper orientation, the front of each card includes the full wording, and the back its unique identifier (ID).

Identifiers (ID) entered manually or automatically hashed from full wordings are also expected in the import functions import.q.sorts and import.q.feedback. The automatic summary of full item wordings, technically known as hashing, proceeds internally by passing the full item wording to the digest function of the package digest (with arguments set to algo = crc32, serialize = FALSE.)

The function proceeds internally by preparing a dataframe with full item wordings and identifiers (ID), and then invokes a prepared *.RNW template included with this package, which in turn includes a knitr chunk, which in turn calls xtable to return a neatly layed-out multi-page table. If you are not familiar with the terminology of item handle, ID and wording or the file structure expected for import functions, please read the respective sections in the documentation for qmethod-package first or consider the package https://github.com/aiorazabala/qmethod/wiki/Data-management{wiki}

See Also

build.q.set, import.q.feedback, import.q.sorts, import.q.concourse

Examples

## Make cards from importexample
data(importexample)
make.cards(importexample$q.set, output.pdf = FALSE)