Discuit – a tool for dividing items into equal sets

In psycho- and neurolinguistic research, items often need to be partitioned into a specified number of subsets that are as comparable as possible regarding multiple variables. This enables a reliable comparison between experimental conditions. With Discuit (De Kok, 2023), we created a tool that can do this task automatically, using clustering algorithms. The tool takes a spreadsheet as input and generates the required number of sets, matched on the provided data. These data can be categorical (e.g. ‘word class’) and/or continuous (e.g. ‘word frequency’). Finally, one variable can be marked as “primary”. The items will be split perfectly even with regard to this variable (e.g. ‘accuracy in pre- treatment assessment’).

We have piloted the tool in a recent aphasia treatment study to split the diagnostic items into to-be- trained and not-to-be-trained items for each of the two participants. In this presentation or poster, I will explain the underlying mechanism of the tool, illustrate how it can be used for different purposes and discuss our pilot study as an example use case.