Sequence analysis process

• Make a record of the raw data

• Data ready for counting events and transitions

• Count events using ‘Find and Replace’ in Word. (See picture below)

• Pick out the most frequent 15-ish, and put the others into groups, eg ‘Low frequency events’. Recode the data accordingly into a new file.

• Count all transitions between these new event categories using ‘Find and Replace’ in Word.

• Make the Transitional Frequency Table, including 'Standard Normal Residuals'. (See pictures at the end for details of the steps, using SPSS.)

• Logic of using Standard Normal Residuals

• Chi-squared table

• Table of Standard Normal Residuals

• Pick a criterion for SNR (2 is often about right), and identify the cells that meet that criterion – the ‘hot spots’ in the table. These will then be the transitions that appear in your results / transition map.

• Link the transitions (event pairs) together

• Software for drawing transition diagrams

http://www.yworks.com/en/products_yed_about.html

• The end product (a drink-driving study)

** Making the transition table in SPSS: a step-by-step guide **