Count Unique Field Values

[soswald16]

I am new to FM8. This may be a simple solution...

I have a Table that contains the answers to 50 test questions, in seperate fields, with 8 possible answers(A,B,C,D,1,2,3,4).

I would like to have the item analysis for each question diplayed in one report, for example 5-A's, 6-B's, 13-C's.

In addition... I would like to perform calculations on the results, for example what percentage of the respondants selected "A" for an answer.

I have orderd FMP 8 Advanced.. if that helps at all.

Thank you in advance.

[onthebass]

There a many ways to do this. Personally I would have made each question a related record in another table. Every time someone clicked on a New test button I would create 50 new blank records with 10 fields: the test ID, the question number, & 8 answer fields--one for each possible answer. Each answer field would be a check box with 1 as the value list. Then you could get sum() or summary by question number and/or answer field.

If we do it the way you are doing it. You could:

Create 8 different calcs, one for each answer. These calcs will figure out how many A's, B's, etc. are on one record (test? questionnaire?).

Calc A

case(answer1= "A"; 1) +

case(answer2= "A"; 1) +

case(answer3= "A"; 1) +

case(answer4= "A"; 1) +

case(answer5= "A"; 1) +

...etc

case(answer50= "A"; 1)

Calc B

case(answer1= "B"; 1) +

case(answer2= "B"; 1) +

case(answer3= "B"; 1) +

case(answer4= "B"; 1) +

case(answer5= "B"; 1) +

...etc

case(answer50= "B"; 1)

Then for summary analysis by question you get into some problems:

You will need 400 calcs not counting the summary calcs: 1 per answer per question in order to parse out each answer so it can be counted individually.

answer_1_A = case(answer1="A", 1)

answer_2_B = case(answer1="B", 1)

answer_2_C = case(answer1="C", 1)

ect...

Then you can summarize each answer for each question individually.

If I were you and I had already collected the data in that format I would write a script to split out the data like I mentioned at the beginning.

Sometimes I miss the obvious so there might be an easier way. Anyone else?

[soswald16]

Thank you for the help. Your initial suggestion would work great, but I am importing all of the data from an Excell document. I have 2000 students each with 5 years worth of testing data that takes 400 fields for each year. I have all of the other "issues" addressed. I am hoping there is a solution that does not require 16 fields for each question. (There are multiple tests with 50 questions each).