Once the field survey has been conducted and the completed interviews or questionnaires begin to flow into the survey office, it is time to begin the often tedious task of editing, coding and analysing the results. Although the physical component of this task begins now, it should be realised that the planning phase should have been completed much earlier in the survey process. It is too late to start designing the coding and analysis procedures once the completed questionnaires begin to arrive. Rather, these tasks should have been largely finalised when the design of the questionnaire and the sample was being considered. Indeed, attention given to these tasks at those earlier stages will greatly facilitate the smooth completion of these tasks now.
The task of transforming completed questionnaires into useable results is composed of several discrete tasks including initial editing of questionnaires, coding, data entry, computer editing, data correction, analysis, interpretation of results and preparation of reports. In addition, to enable use of the data for secondary analysis at a later date, it will be necessary to arrange for satisfactory storage of the data. This chapter will concentrate on the coding and editing of data in preparation for analysis. Later chapters will examine the tasks involved in the latter stages of data analysis.
8.1 INITIAL QUESTIONNAIRE EDITING
8.2 CODING
8.2.1 Coding Method
8.2.2 Code Format
8.2.3 Coding Frames
8.2.3.1 Open-question Coding Frames
8.2.3.2 Closed-question Coding Frames 8.2.3.3 Location Coding
8.2.4 Coding Administration
8.3 COMPUTER-BASED DATA ENTRY AND EDITING
8.3.1 Data Entry
8.3.2 Data Editing