THE ART OF CODING OF QUESTIONNAIRES

ByDavid Onen (Ph.D)

Lecturer, Department Of Higher DegreesUganda Management Institute (UMI)

A paper presented to the participants on theMMS Program of UMI on 13th December, 2010.

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The questionnaire is the most commonly used instrument of data collection in social science researches. It is often followed by the Interview guide/schedules, Observation Guide, Focus group Discussion Guide and Documentary Checklists and other measuring devices. The use of the question is premised on the fact that:It can be used to collect data from a large sample in a short time.It can give freedom to those who can read the liberty to give their opinion without direct influence from the researcher or other persons.It can guarantee respondent’s anonymity.It can be cost effective – especially when it is posted on sent through emails.

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But despite these advantages, the questionnaire has its own shortfalls. For instance:It is not easy to design, especially a good one.Its use is limited to those subjects that can read and write.

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Data processing is the operations performed on a set of data to extract the required information in an appropriate form such as a diagrams, reports or tables.Data coding is the transformation of our questionnaire data into another format that the computer could understand; it is the converting of questionnaire data into numbers one for each value.

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Coding of questionnaire data needs you to:1.Give a variable a name. The name given:Must begin with a letter.6 to 12 characters are best.Must be meaningful - to help remind you.It would be helpful to put the question number at the end.

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Closed ended DVMake sure you know which closed ended questions is part of your DV measures.Define the positive end of your scale and assign bigger numbers accordingly.Give missing numbers on your DV a neutral value.

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Reverse scored DV questions as needed e.g.I am often sad: 5-SA; 4-A; 3-U; 2-D; 1-SDI am often happy:1-SA; 2-A; 3-U; 4-D; 5-SDIndex: this will be calculated for you by the computer; but check manually for its correctness too.Open ended questionsSort questions that into meaningful groups of responses.This may be Positive, Neutral or Negative views over an issue.You can then assign a number to it or thematic codes to the answers.

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Independent VariablesAssign numbers to categories as follows:If IV is nominal - Numbers are assigned arbitrarily.If IV is ordinal - Assign numbers in order; but the direction or the order does not matter.If IV is Numerical – e.g. age in years, then use the numbers.Coding data into a data sheet;04/20/23 8Dr. D. Onen

•Coding data into a data sheet;Use an excel spread sheet.Each variable will be put into a column.

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When coding the questionnaire, it is important to:

Prepare a simple grid to collate the data provided in the questionnaire.Design a simple coding system.It’s easy to code closed ended questions if answers were ranked.To evaluate open questions, review responses and try to categorize them into sufficiently small set of broad categories which can then be coded.Enter the data on the grid. Calculate the proportion of respondents answering for each category of each question.To explore relations or effects between variables…refer to the appropriate techniques of data analysis.