Should I use long-format or recode the condition column? I am just starting out with R and struggling to wrap my head around it.
I have a data set from a $2 \times 2$ repeated measures experiment (IV 1 - Expectation with two levels, number or letter; IV 2 - Target with two levels, number or letter). The dependent variable is reaction time.
I am struggling to decide whether I need to keep my tidied data in a long format with 3 columns - Participant ID, Condition (1, 2, 3, 4), RT. Or recode the condition column into two separate columns so I have four columns in the new tidied data set - ID, Expectation, Target and RT.
Which would be the correct way to go about it? Does it depend on the visualisations I plan to create afterwards?
Hope this makes sense, thank you in advance!

It's hard to tell a priori if a long format is better than a wide format since it really depends on what are your aims. Anyway, for modelling purposes, it may be more useful to have it in a long format.
However, note that you can always switch from one format to the other using, for instance, the reshape command of R.
