THE ART OF CODING OF QUESTIONNAIRES By David Onen (Ph.D) Lecturer, Department Of Higher Degrees Uganda Management Institute (UMI) A paper presented to the participants on the MMS Program of UMI on 13 th December, /18/2015Dr. D. Onen1

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 s. 10/18/20152Dr. D. Onen

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. 10/18/20153Dr. D. Onen

 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. 10/18/20154Dr. D. Onen

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. 10/18/20155Dr. D. Onen

Closed ended DV  Make 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. 10/18/20156Dr. D. Onen

 Reverse scored DV questions as needed e.g. I am often sad: 5-SA; 4-A; 3-U; 2-D; 1-SD I am often happy:1-SA; 2-A; 3-U; 4-D; 5-SD  Index: this will be calculated for you by the computer; but check manually for its correctness too.  Open ended questions  Sort 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. 10/18/20157Dr. D. Onen

Independent Variables Assign 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; 10/18/20158Dr. D. Onen

Coding data into a data sheet;  Use an excel spread sheet.  Each variable will be put into a column. 10/18/20159Dr. D. Onen

10/18/2015Dr. D. Onen10 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.