GETTING THE DATA READY FOR ANALYSIS

After data are obtained through questionnaires, they need to be coded, keyed in, and
edited. That is, a categorization scheme has to be set up before the data can be typed in.

 GETTING DATA READY FOR ANALYSIS

 CODING & DATA ENTRY

 EDITING DATA

 DATA TRANSFORMATION

1. Coding and data entry

Data coding involves assigning a number to the participants’ responses so they can be entered
into a database.

However, if, for whatever reason, this cannot be done, then it is perhaps a good idea to use a
coding sheet first to transcribe the data from the questionnaire and then key in the data. This
method, in contrast to flipping through each questionnaire for each item, avoids confusion,
especially when there are many questions and a large number of questionnaires as well.

In connection with the number of participants who responded to be entered into the data
base.Consists of:

 The process of systematically compiling raw data (contained in the questionnaire) into a
data processing machine, for example, SPSS.
 Example: Gender variable

1: Male 2. Female

a) Coding data

 Coding data is used as the basis for making a coding book.

 Questionnaires in closed questions are easier to do coding, when compared to open
questions.
  If you use open-ended questions in a questionnaire you should take an inventory of the
respondents' answers.
  This is one of the most important steps in data preparation). It refers to grouping and
assigning values to responses from the survey. 

For example, if a researcher has interviewed 1,000 people and now wants to find the average
age of the respondents, the researcher will create age buckets and categorize the age of each of
the respondent as per these codes. (For example, respondents between 13-15 years old would
have their age coded as 0, 16-18 as 1, 18-20 as 2, etc.) Then during analysis, the researcher can
deal with simplified age brackets, rather than a massive range of individual ages.

b) Data Entry

After the responses from the participants, the results are entered into the data base. Raw data (raw
data)
can be entered via any software program, eg SPSS.
Data entry is a person-based process, is one of the important basic tasks needed when no
machine-readable version of the information for planned computer-based analysis or processing
is readily available. Sometimes what is needed is information about the information that can be
greater than the value of the information itself. It can also involve filling in required information
which is then data-entered from what was written on the research document, such as the growth
in available items in a category.
Procedures of data entry include are often done with a keyboard and at times also using a mouse,
although a manually-fed scanner may be involved. Historically, devices lacking any pre-
processing capabilities were used.

2. Editing data

After the data are keyed in, they need to be edited. For instance, the blank responses, if
any, have to be handled in some way,

After inputting data, it should be edited to avoid:

  Illogical Response
 Inconsistent Response
 Illegal Codes
 Omissions

Illogical Response   Outlier

An outlier is an observation that is substantially different from other observations.

Inconsistent Response

Is a response that is inconsistent with other information.

Illegal Code

Is a value not specified in the coding instructions.

Omissions

It is an omission that is not answering some questions  Blank Response

Editing data:

 Blank response solution:

 Leave the answer blank.
 Look at the participant's response pattern to other questions, then conclude
the answer to the blank response.
 Fill in the middle value
 If more than 25% of the questions are empty, then the sample is not used

3. Data transformation

Data transformation, a variation of data coding, is the process of changing the original
numerical representation of a quantitative value to another value. Data are typically changed to
avoid problems in the next stage of the data analysis process.
For example, economists often use a logarithmic transformation so that the data are more evenly
distributed. If, for instance, income data, which are often unevenly distributed, are reduced to
their logarithmic value, the high incomes are brought closer to the lower end of the scale and
provide a distribution closer to a normal curve.

An example is Reverse Scoring.

 "I put in too much effort than what I got back"

 "In general, the benefits I receive from the organization outweigh the effort I put forth"
(reverse)

Processes such as data integration, data migration, data warehousing(Organizations that use on-
premises data warehouses generally use an ETL (extract, transform, load), and data wrangling all
may involve data transformation.
Data transformation may be constructive (adding, copying, and replicating data), destructive
(deleting fields and records), aesthetic (standardizing salutations or street names), or structural
(renaming, moving, and combining columns in a database).
Benefits of data transformation.
i. Data is transformed to make it better-organized. Transformed data may be easier for both
humans and computers to use.
ii. Properly formatted and validated data improves the data quality and protects applications
from potential landmines such as null values, unexpected duplicates, incorrect indexing, and
incompatible formats.
iii. Data transformation facilitates compatibility between applications, systems, and types of
data. Data used for multiple purposes may need to be transformed in different ways.