16-1

Data Preparation and Description

Data Preparation in the Research Process

Editing
Accurate Consistent

Arranged for simplification

Criteria

Uniformly entered

Complete

Field Editing
Field editing review Entry gaps identified Callbacks made Validate results

Central Editing
Be familiar with instructions given to interviewers and coders Do not destroy the original entry Make all editing entries identifiable and in standardized form Initial all answers changed or supplied Place initials and date of editing on each instrument completed

Sample Codebook

Precoding

Coding Open-Ended Questions

Coding Rules

Exhaustive Categories should be

Appropriate to the research problem

Mutually exclusive

Derived from one classification principle

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Content Analysis

QSRs XSight software for content analysis.

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Types of Content Analysis

Syntactical

Referential

Propositional

Thematic

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Open-Question Coding
Locus of Responsibility
A. Company B. Customer C. Joint Company-Customer F. Other

Mentioned
________________________ ________________________ ________________________ ________________________

Not Mentioned
________________________ ________________________ ________________________ ________________________

Locus of Responsibility
A. Management 1. Sales manager 2. Sales process 3. Other 4. No action area identified B. Management 1. Training C. Customer 1. Buying processes 2. Other 3. No action area identified D. Environmental conditions E. Technology F. Other

Frequency (n = 100)
10 20 7 3 15 12 8 5 20

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Handling Dont Know Responses

Question: Do you have a productive relationship with your present salesperson?
Dont Know
38% 32

Years of Purchasing
Less than 1 year 1 3 years

Yes
10% 30

No
40% 30

4 years or more
Total

60
100% n = 650

30
100% n = 150

30
100% n = 200

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Data Entry
Keyboarding Database Programs

Digital/ Barcodes Voice recognition

Optical Recognition

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Missing Data

Listwise Deletion

Pairwise Deletion

Replacement