Flash Programming for the Social & Behavioral Sciences: A Simple Guide to Sophisticated Online Surveys and Experiments
Publication Year: 2013
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781452244099
Subject: Survey Research, Internet Research, Quantitative Methods
- Chapters
- Front Matter
- Back Matter
- Subject Index
-
- Chapter 1: The Flash Interface
- 1. Creating a New File
- 2. Managing your Workspace
- 3. Getting to know your Workspace
- 4. Adding Elements to your Stage
- Resources
- Chapter 2: ActionScript Basics
- 1. Entering Code: Actions Panel
- 2. Terminology
- 3. Coding Conventions
- 4. Order of Execution
- 5. Variables
- 6. Simple Mathematical Operations
- 7. Compiling the Program
- 8. Sending Information to the Output Tab
- 9. Functions
- 10. Conditional Statements
- 11. Loops
- Resources
- Chapter 3: Navigation
- 1. Inserting New Frames
- 2. Naming Frames
- 3. Responding to a Button Press
- 4. Code for Frame Navigation
- 5. Reusing Functions
- 6. Removing Event Listeners
- Resources
- Chapter 4: Working with Text and Keystrokes
- 1. Text Field Creation
- 2. Types of Text Fields
- 3. Setting Text Field Properties
- 4. Other ways of Working with Text in Flash
- 5. Key Recognition
- Example: Responding to a Keystroke
- Example: Looking up keyCodes and charCodes
- Example: Responding to Specific Keys
- Example: Capturing Input Text
- Resources
- Chapter 5: Presenting and Storing Information in Arrays
- 1. What is an Array and when would you Need to use it?
- 2. Defining and Populating Arrays
- 3. Properties and Methods of Arrays
- Example: Cycling through an Array from Start to Finish
- Example: Dynamically Manipulating Arrays: Storing Responses
- Example: Looking up Information in an Array
- 4. Common Array Malfunctions
- Resources
- Chapter 6: Questionnaire Tools
- 1. List Component
- Example: Using a List to Present Response Options
- Example: Making a Button Visible when the user Selects a Response from the List
- Example: Activating a Visible Button when the user Selects a Response from the List
- Example: Presenting a Warning Message if the user Tries to Continue without Selecting a Response
- Example: Storing the user's Selection from a List
- 2. The RadioButton Component
- Example: Storing RadioButton Responses
- Example: Resetting the RadioButton Selection
- 3. CheckBox Component
- Example: Storing Multiple Responses from the CheckBox Component in an Array
- 4. Slider Component
- Example: Updating a Text Field as the user Drags a Slider
- Resources
- Chapter 7: Condition Assignment and Randomization
- 1. Manual Condition Assignment versus Randomization
- 2. Condition Selection with Experimenter Input
- Example: Experimenter Presses a Different Button for Each Condition
- Example: Experimenter Types in the Condition Number
- 3. Randomization: Picking a Condition without Experimenter input
- Example: Selecting a Condition Based on a Randomly Generated Number
- 4. Using Random Number Generation to Randomize Stimuli
- Example: Sampling Randomly from an Array with Replacement
- Example: Sampling Randomly from an Array without Replacement
- Example: Randomizing an Entire Array
- Resources
- Chapter 8: Using Timers and Recording Reaction Time
- 1. Date and Time Stamps
- Example: Accessing Individual Properties of a Date and Time Stamp
- 2. Experimenter Controlled Timings using the setTimeout Method
- Example: Setting Timings With the setTimeout Method
- Example: Using setTimeout to Set off a Series of Events
- Example: Overriding a setTimeout Call with user input
- 3. Experimenter Controlled Timings using the Timer
- Example: Setting Timings with a Timer
- 4. Countdown Timers
- Example: Counting down the Seconds using a Timer
- 5. Recording Reaction Times
- 6. Accuracy of Timings in Flash
- Resources
- Chapter 9: Saving Data
- 1. Data Output
- Example: Using a String Variable to Store Output
- 2. Creating an Excel Template for Data Output
- 3. Testing the Output
- Resources
- Chapter 10: Putting your Program Online
- 1. Idiot-Proofing your Program
- 2. Sending Output out of Flash
- 3. Publishing your Program
- 4. Uploading your Program
- 5. Testing the Program and Troubleshooting
- 6. Wrapping Up
- Resources
-
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 by SAGE Publications, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Weinstein, Yana.
Flash programming for the social & behavioral sciences: a simple guide to sophisticated online surveys and experiments/Yana Weinstein; with contributions from K. Andrew DeSoto.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4129-9635-8 (pbk.)
1. Flash (Computer file) 2. Web sites–Authoring programs. 3. Internet surveys—Software. I. DeSoto, K. Andrew. II. Title.
TR897.7.W4495 2013
006.6’960243—dc23
2012002533
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
12 13 14 15 16 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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Dedication
For Asya and Leva Tcherniak
About the Author
Dr. Yana Weinstein is a psychology researcher and data analyst at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. She received her PhD in cognitive psychology from University College London. She divides her time among human memory research, data analysis for academic and commercial projects, and encouraging psychologists to use the latest technology for their research.
Preface
When I secured my place in graduate school, I went to meet my future adviser to find out what topics I should read up on over the summer. I was expecting a lengthy reading list, but instead I got one simple instruction: Learn to program. Most experimental psychology labs have a preferred programming language for their experiments and all new lab members are expected to learn it and become proficient programmers. Somewhat surprisingly, however, programming is seldom explicitly taught, and resources for self-instruction are scarce or not specifically tailored to psychologists. That summer, I hunted unsuccessfully for the ideal textbook—one that would teach me the basics of the language, bypass all the functionality I wouldn't need, and cut straight through to the techniques required for programming psychology experiments. Of course there was no such textbook, so I muddled through with endless online searches and adapting code from more advanced students while acquiring all their bad habits. In writing this book, I compiled all the information I was unable to find, ranging from specifics such as “How do I present stimuli in a random order?” to bigger questions such as “How do I collect data online?” in a format that is most intuitive to social and behavioral scientists—one in which each new technique is introduced in the context of a common aspect of survey or experiment design.
Acknowledgments
My greatest thanks for making this book happen go to Decision Technology Ltd. (Dectech), Kathleen McDermott and Roddy Roediger, Vicki Knight, and Andy DeSoto. I would never have thought of learning Flash had I not seen it put to work by the staff at Dectech, who run huge online surveys and experiments and collect data in a fraction of the time it used to take me in the lab. As a casual data analyst on various projects with Dectech, I was not involved in programming the experiments in Flash (they have dedicated programmers for this), but I was very curious to learn, and I ended up doing so in my spare time.
When Kathleen McDermott and Roddy Roediger (my postdoctoral advisers at the time) became aware of the possibilities of rapid online data collection, they allowed me to try out a few of our studies with this method. One thing led to another, and soon I was teaching Flash programming to psychology graduate students in the department—but Kathleen took it one step further and encouraged me to put all the information from the class (and more) into a textbook format. Kathleen took the time to chat with Vicki Knight on my behalf, and a great collaboration was born. This book would never have been published without Kathleen's initiative and support. Vicki was extremely enthusiastic about the project from the start, and she has been a great pleasure to work with (it was especially lovely to have a British expat connection). I would also like to thank the reviewers: Nathan D. Martin, Michelle C. Bligh, Melissa Birkett, and Jennifer L. Callahan for their insightful comments on an earlier draft of this book, which undoubtedly made it a much better finished product.
Finally, Andy DeSoto participated in the creation of the book every step of the way: He read every single word, corrected awkward sentences and mislabeled concepts, rewrote whole paragraphs, and verified all the code samples. Andy is a PhD student and human memory researcher at Washington University in St. Louis, and he got involved in the project after taking my Flash class. You can visit his personal website at http://me.andydesoto.com/ or follow him on Twitter at @kadesoto.
Why Flash?
Adobe Flash is currently one of the most popular languages for animated web content, and almost all modern computers are capable of playing Flash content. Psychologists have recently started to take advantage of this to collect experimental data online. Flash is used not only for questionnaire-based studies but also for sophisticated experiments involving stimuli such as pictures, dynamic shapes, and animation. This language arguably offers the most flexibility to social and behavioral scientists: It allows absolute control over design and visual aspects and only requires simple online implementation. Accurate reaction time measurement is also possible, although note that some recorded timings may be overestimates when the program is run online, and extremely short presentation rates are not advisable (see Chapter 8 for more details).
If you are wondering whether Flash is right for your research, here are some suggestions for the types of content that can be programmed in Flash: memory experiments, perceptual tasks, simulated games, and any kind of survey to collect information and/or opinions. To help you decide whether to invest time in learning Flash, we've uploaded a sample memory experiment program to http://www.sagepub.com/weinstein to give you an idea of the kind of program you will learn to create. If you work through this book, you will have all the tools at your disposal to create a program like this for your own research.
The following infographic illustrates why Flash is currently the best option for programming online experiments and surveys that will be presented on multiple platforms, as compared with its closest competitor, HTML5. For more information on the software and various purchasing options, please visit http://www.sagepub.com/weinstein.
Comparison of Flash and HTML5
How to use this Book
This book has two main uses: It can be used either as a basis for teaching a class, or it can be used as a comprehensive self-study guide. This book neither requires nor assumes any previous knowledge of programming whatsoever, although general computer literacy is necessary. Each chapter introduces a new set of concepts and techniques that are crucial to programming a survey or experiment in Flash. We would go so far as to say that no survey or experiment can be programmed in Flash without some grasp of concepts from each of the chapters. With this in mind, we have designed each chapter to be a hands-on experience to encourage readers to learn and practice all the concepts. Every chapter includes how-to instructions and/or code samples that can be implemented by typing the code out in a program; each student should do this in order to get a feel for code structure. The code samples are reproduced as they will appear in the Flash interface. In some cases, especially later on, a little setup is needed before the code can be implemented. In these cases, the steps required for setup are listed at the start of the example. All the steps in those setup instructions should already be familiar to the reader as they will have been covered in detail in previous chapters. Most chapters also include an exercise for users to try out on their own. Solutions to these exercises, along with programs associated with each example in the book, are available on the accompanying website.
1. Teaching a Class Based on the BookThe book itself is based very closely on a semester-long course I taught to psychology graduate students who wanted to learn how to program an experiment for online data collection. Each of the chapters in this book more or less corresponds to one class I taught during the course. Classes were around 3 hours long, and it was a very hands-on course. Each student sat in front of a computer, and I presented short chunks of code on a projector so that students had to type it in to their own program and make it work. If you have a programming background but aren't familiar with Flash, as long as you take a pass through this book on your own first (discussed later), you could run a beginners’ programming course on the basis of this book. Simply help the students through each of the examples in a chapter during the class, and set the exercise at the end of the chapter as homework. I found that a ratio of one instructor per four to six students was about right, because students will require a lot of assistance during the learning process. It is amazing how many little things can go wrong in a very simple program! Once students are comfortable with the basics covered in the book, I would set them a larger and more applied task: Program an experiment or survey that they could actually use for their own data collection purposes. This gets students thinking about the design flow of their program and what techniques they really need to master to make their program behave correctly.
2. Using the Book for Self-StudyYou can also use this book to teach yourself how to program behavioral experiments and surveys on your own. If this is what you would like to do, we encourage you to use this book as a manual or textbook and not a reference. Studies in cognitive and educational psychology have shown that some of the best learning happens when people take the time to work through problems and experience examples. As such, our recommendation is that you open up a new Flash project and go through this book chapter by chapter, following the instructions laid out for you in each section. Also, if you are new to computer programming, do not expect to learn Flash in one day. The knowledge will stick better if you make the effort to learn ActionScript over a period of several weeks, for instance. If you have the time to set aside, a weekly session of 2 to 3 hours plus some extra time to work on the exercises at the end of each chapter would allow you to cover all the content in the book in 10 weeks.
A special note to Mac users: Most of this book was written based on the Microsoft Windows operating system. As such, you may find several places in this book that do not correspond entirely to what you might be seeing on the screen. However, Flash was developed with both Windows and Macintosh operating systems in mind and you should find these discrepancies to be minimal, if you find them at all. Beginning Mac users should consult their computer manual if they are confused by any instructions within this text. To foreshadow potential issues, windows in OSX can be closed or minimized by clicking the red “X” or yellow “-”, respectively, on the top left corner of the window (or press Command-W or Command-M). If your mouse does not support right-clicking, click your mouse while pressing the Control button on your keyboard to mimic a right-click. Certain Mac peripherals may also support right-clicking even if the device doesn't seem to. Again, consult your manual when these issues arise.
3. ResourcesOnce you have mastered the basics detailed in the book, you will probably want to move on to more complicated programming. There are many tips, tricks, and advanced techniques that we could not fit into this book, so with this in mind we have compiled a list of resources for each chapter. The links in these resource sections take you to reference tools, tutorials, and pertinent forum discussions that can broaden your horizons and help you become an expert programmer. These links either add extra breadth to a topic covered in the chapter, or they explore a topic that is beyond the scope of this book but could be useful for programming a survey or experiment. The links are mostly to specific articles and tutorials within blogs and websites that post a lot of relevant content, so feel free to explore other content on those blogs and websites, as they may prove to be useful. Each chapter has its own resources section, and there is a web index in the back where the links are listed in alphabetical order. The links are hot-linked for your convenience at http://www.sagepub.com/weinstein.
-
Resources Index
The following links are hot-linked for your convenience at http://www.sagepub.com/weinstein.
http://actionsnippet.com/?p=1640 A trick for making your randomly generated numbers more variable. (“Chapter 7: Condition Assignment and Randomization”)
http://actionsnippet.com/?p=385 How to use the date stamp to automatically generate a unique Id for each user. (“Chapter 8: Using Timers and Recording Reaction Time”)
http://adding-flash.blogspot.com/ How to put Flash content on a weblog or other website. (“Chapter 10: Putting Your Program Online”)
http://as3-blog.net/?p=578 An advanced look at shuffling around the contents of an array. (“Chapter 7: Condition Assignment and Randomization”)
http://blog.reyco1.com/method-of-removing-all-event-listeners/ A potential method of removing all event listeners. (“Chapter 3: Navigation”)
http://coding.smashingmagazine.com/2011/01/11/keeping-web-users-safe-by-sanitizing-input-data/ The importance of sanitizing database input. (“Chapter 4: Working With Text and Keystrokes”)
http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/helpcenter/actionscript30cookbook/chapter1.html?page=6 Sample chapter from the ActionScript 3.0 Cookbook, explaining the switch statement. (“Chapter 7: Condition Assignment and Randomization”)
http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/ActionScript_3_event_handling_tutorial#List_of_events List of the most common Flash events. (“Chapter 3: Navigation”)
http://filezilla-project.org/ The most popular free program for uploading files to a server. (“Chapter 10: Putting Your Program Online”)
http://flash-creations.com/notes/actionscript_operators.php Common mathematical operators in Flash. (“Chapter 2: ActionScript Basics”)
http://gskinner.com/blog/archives/2010/07/some_thoughts_o.html Some thoughts on TLF. (“Chapter 4: Working With Text and Keystrokes”)
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/AS2LCR/Flash_10.0/help.html?content=00000335.html A basic introduction to concatenating (adding together) Strings. (“Chapter 9: Saving Data”)
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/as3/dev/WS5b3ccc516d4fbf351e63e3d118a9b90204-7d01.html Additional information on capturing keyboard input. (“Chapter 4: Working With Text and Keystrokes”)
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/flash/cs/using/WS3e7c64e37a1d85e1e229110db38dec34-7feba.html Discusses the “code hinting” feature in Flash. (“Chapter 2: ActionScript Basics”)
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/flash/cs/using/WSd60f23110762d6b883b18f10cb1fe1af6-7d29a.html#WSd60f23110762d6b883b18f10cb1fe1af6-7d22a Setting Classic Text properties (including anti-aliasing options). (“Chapter 4: Working With Text and Keystrokes”)
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/flash/ui/Keyboard.html#constantSummary Definitive list of constant keyCodes. (“Chapter 4: Working With Text and Keystrokes”)
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/incopy/cs/using/WSa285fff53dea4f8617383751001ea8cb3f-6e14a.html An article about kerning. (“Chapter 4: Working With Text and Keystrokes”)
http://home.earthlink.net/~craie/121/notes/vocabulary.html Programming language vocabulary basics. (“Chapter 2: ActionScript Basics”)
http://html-color-codes.com/ HTML color codes. (“Chapter 4: Working With Text and Keystrokes”)
http://layersmagazine.com/build-a-simple-countdown-timer-in-flash.html Creating a countdown timer in Flash. Includes more advanced design techniques as well as code samples. (“Chapter 8: Using Timers and Recording Reaction Time”)
http://lifehacker.com/5683682/five-best-domain-name-registrars A list of the five best domain registrars, as voted by a techy community. (“Chapter 10: Putting Your Program Online”)
http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/tools-and-tips/introduction-to-adobe-air/ An introduction to Adobe AIR, which provides another method of packaging an experiment. (“Chapter 10: Putting Your Program Online”)
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/text-import-wizard-HP010102244.aspx Introduction to the Text Import Wizard in Microsoft Office Excel. (“Chapter 9: Saving Data”)
http://snipplr.com/view/11307/as3-randomize-array/ Another method of randomizing the contents of an array. (“Chapter 7: Condition Assignment and Randomization”)
http://tv.adobe.com/channel/how-to/ Adobe TV, which contains a series of useful how–to videos. (“Chapter 1: The Flash Interface”)
http://www.actionscript.org/forums/showthread.php3?t=177515 A forum discussion of what precisely “void” means in functions. (“Chapter 2: ActionScript Basics”)
http://www.actionscript.org/forums/showthread.php3?t=191468 A discussion thread about deselecting RadioButtons. (“Chapter 6: Questionnaire Tools”)
http://www.actionscript.org/resources/articles/5/1/The-power-of-nested-loops/Page1.html Using “nested for loops” in Flash. (“Chapter 2: ActionScript Basics”)
http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/flash/articles/flacs3it_astimeline_print.html A basic overview of how to use the Timer class. (“Chapter 8: Using Timers and Recording Reaction Time”)
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/articles/flash_cs5_createfla.html Another introduction to the Flash workspace. (“Chapter 1: The Flash Interface”)
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/components.html An exhaustive list of the component reference pages provided by Adobe. (“Chapter 6: Questionnaire Tools”)
http://www.adobe.com/livedocs/flash/9.0/main/wwhelp/wwhimpl/common/html/wwhelp.htm?context=LiveDocs_Parts&file=00000047.html Flash data type reference. (“Chapter 2: ActionScript Basics”)
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/Array.html The API entry for the Array object. (“Chapter 5: Presenting and Storing Information in Arrays”)
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/flash/cs/using/WSd60f23110762d6b883b18f10cb1fe1af6-7f84a.html A more detailed introduction to manipulating the Flash timeline. (“Chapter 3: Navigation”)
http://www.designscripting.com/2010/08/html-tags-supported-by-flash/ List of HTML tags supported by Flash. (“Chapter 4: Working With Text and Keystrokes”)
http://www.flashandmath.com/howtos/eztimer/index.html An advanced look at Timer performance, with a demonstration of the error margin. (“Chapter 8: Using Timers and Recording Reaction Time”)
http://www.flashcomponents.net/component/slider_component.html Two implementations of the Slider component. (“Chapter 6: Questionnaire Tools”)
http://www.flashvalley.com/fv_articles/Naming_conventions_in_actionscript/ Some thoughts about naming conventions in Flash. (“Chapter 1: The Flash Interface”)
http://www.foundation-flash.com/tutorials/debugging/ Common errors people make in Flash and how to fix them. (“Chapter 2: ActionScript Basics”)
http://www.gavilan.edu/csis/languages/comments.html An interesting history of the use of comments in programming languages. (“Chapter 3: Navigation”)
http://www.lauraruel.com/j187/PDFs/flash_online.pdf A journalist's guide to putting Flash programs online, which applies to experiments too. (“Chapter 10: Putting Your Program Online”)
http://www.macloo.com/examples/flash/button_states/ An illustration of the various Button states. (“Chapter 1: The Flash Interface”)
http://www.onebyonedesign.com/tutorials/array_methods/ A list of advanced Array methods. (“Chapter 5: Presenting and Storing Information in Arrays”)
http://www.propublica.org/article/propublicas-guide-to-mechanical-turk Overview of Amazon Mechanical Turk for those who want to have anonymous users complete their experiments. (“Chapter 10: Putting Your Program Online”)
http://www.republicofcode.com/tutorials/flash/as3arrays/ A simple introduction to Arrays. (“Chapter 5: Presenting and Storing Information in Arrays”)
http://www.republicofcode.com/tutorials/flash/as3events/ Additional information on event handling. (“Chapter 3: Navigation”)
http://www.signar.se/blog/as-3-charcodes/ charCode and keyCode reference. (“Chapter 4: Working With Text and Keystrokes”)
http://www.smartwebby.com/Flash/external_data.asp Loading data from external text files into Flash. Pair with Arrays to save lots of time. (“Chapter 5: Presenting and Storing Information in Arrays”)
http://www.sunilb.com/programming/12-common-programming-mistakes-to-avoid Common programming mistakes. (“Chapter 2: ActionScript Basics”)
http://www.toxiclab.org/tutorial.asp?ID=69 A tutorial for creating complex Buttons. (“Chapter 1: The Flash Interface”)
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucjtsre/B210.pdf Academic journal article measuring the accuracy of reaction time measurement in Flash. (“Chapter 8: Using Timers and Recording Reaction Time”)
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20040927.html A thorough discussion on when to use CheckBoxes versus RadioButtons. (“Chapter 6: Questionnaire Tools”)
http://www.utexas.edu/learn/flash/buttons.html A tutorial about Buttons. (“Chapter 1: The Flash Interface”)
http://www.video2brain.com/en/videos-699.htm A video introducing the Flash interface. (“Chapter 1: The Flash Interface”)
http://www.w3.org/TR/html/ General information on HTML. (“Chapter 4: Working With Text and Keystrokes”)
http://www.webwasp.co.uk/tutorials/005/MX02/index.php A tutorial about Buttons. (“Chapter 1: The Flash Interface”)
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