Good Morning

Topic:- Editing and Coding

(Business Research Method)

Overview of the Stages of Data Analysis
 EDITING

 The process of checking and adjusting

responses in the completed questionnaires
for omissions,legibility, and consistency and
readying them for coding and electronic
storage.
 Purpose of editing is to eliminate errors &
confusion.
 Editing involves inspection & correction of
each questionare.
 The main role of editing is inspecting,
correcting & modifying the data.
 Types of Editing
1. Field Editing
• Preliminary editing by a field supervisor on the
same day as the interview to catch technical
omissions, check legibility of handwriting, and
clarify responses that are logically or
conceptually inconsistent.
The main problem faced in field editing
i. Inappropriate respondents.
ii. Incmplete interviews.
iii. Improper understanding.
iv. Lack of consistency.
v. Legibility.
i. Inappropriate Respondents:
It is intended to include house owners in the
sample for conducting the survey. If a tenant
is interviewed, it would be wrong.
ii. Incomplete interview:
All Questions are to be answered.there should
not be any blanks, Blanks can have different
meaning like :(a) No answer.(b) Refusal to
answer. (c) Question not applicable.
(d)Interviewer by overright din’t record.
iii. Lack of understanding:
The interviewer in a hurry, would have
recorded some abbreviation answer. Later at
the end of the day, s(he) can’t figure out what
is meant.
Vi. Consistency:
The earlier part of the questionnaire indicates
that there are no children and in the later part
the age of children is mentioned .
V. Legibility:
if what is said is not clear, the interviewer
must clarify the same on the spot.
2. In-house/office Editing

Editing performed by a central office staff &

the job of an office editor is often more
difficult than field editing.

e.g- A respondent indicated that he doesn’t

drink coffee, but when questioned about his
favourite brand,he replied “Bru”.
 Purpose of Editing

1. For consistency between and among

responses
2. For completeness in responses– to
reduce effects of item non-response
3. To better utilize questions answered
out of order
4. To facilitate the coding process
Facilitating the Coding Process
• Data Clean-up
• Checking written responses for any stray
marks
• Editing And Tabulating “Don’t Know”
Answers
• Legitimate don’t know (no opinion)
• Reluctant don’t know (refusal to answer)
• Confused don’t know (does not
understand)
Data Cleaning: Consistency Checks

Consistency checks identify data that

are out of range, logically inconsistent, or
have extreme values.
• Computer packages like SPSS, SAS,
EXCEL and MINITAB can be programmed
to identify out-of-range values for each
variable and print out the respondent
code, variable code, variable name, record
number, column number, and out-of-
range value.
• Extreme values should be closely
examined.
Data Cleaning: Treatment of Missing
Responses
1. Substitute a Neutral Value – A neutral
value, typically the mean response to the
variable, is substituted for the missing
responses.
2. Substitute an Imputed Response – The
respondents' pattern of responses to other
questions are used to impute or calculate a
suitable response to the missing questions.
3. Casewise deletion - cases, or respondents,
with any missing responses are discarded from
the analysis.
4. Pairwise deletion - instead of discarding all
cases with any missing values, the researcher
uses only the cases or respondents with
complete responses for each calculation.
 CODING
• The process of identifying and
classifying each answer with a
numerical score or other character
symbol
• The numerical score or symbol is called a
code, and serves as a rule for interpreting,
classifying, and recording data
•  Identifying responses with codes is
necessary if data is to be processed by
computer
 Coding - Continued
• Coded data is often stored electronically in the
form of a data matrix - a rectangular
arrangement of the data into rows (representing
cases) and columns (representing variables)
 
The data matrix is organized into fields, records,
and files:
• Field: A collection of characters that represents a
single type of data
• Record: A collection of related fields, i.e., fields
related to the same case (or respondent)
• File: A collection of related records, i.e. records
related to the same sample
 An Illustrative Computer File

Fields
Column Numbers
Records 1-3 4 5-67-8 ... 26 ... 77

Record 1 001 1 31 01 6544234553 5

Record 11 002 1 31 01 5564435433 4
Record 21 003 1 31 01 4655243324 4
Record 31 004 1 31 01 5463244645 6
Record 2701 271 1 31 55 6652354435 5
 Key Issues in Coding

1. Pre-Coding Fixed-Alternative Questions

(FAQs) -Writing codes for FAQs on the
questionnaire before the data collection
2. Coding Open-Ended Questions - A 3-stage
process:
(a) Perform a test tabulation, (b) Devise a
coding scheme, (c) Code all responses
Two Rules For Code Construction are:
a) Coding categories should be exhaustive
b) Coding categories should be mutually exclusive
and independent
 Issues in Coding - Continued

3. Maintaining a Code Book - A book

that identifies each variable in a study, the
variable’s description, code name, and
position in the data matrix
4. Production Coding - The physical
activity of transferring the data from the
questionnaire or data collection form [to the
computer] after the data has been collected.
Sometimes done through a coding sheet –
ruled paper drawn to mimic the data matrix
 Maintaining a Codebook
• Codebook – A document that contains coding
instructions and the necessary information
about variables in the data set.
• Generally contains the following information
about each variable:
1. Record number (Respondent number)
2. Question number
3. Variable name
4. Variable label
5. Variable type
6. Codes (Value labels) - e.g. 1=Strongly agree,
etc)
7. Coding instructions

Example :-
Question variable NO Code Description Variable name
______ 1 Record number RECNUM
______ 2 Respondent number RESID
1 3 5 digit zip code ZIP
2 4 2 digit birth year BIRTH
3 5 Gender GENDER
1=Male
2=Female
9=Missing
4 6 Marital Status MARITAL
1=Married
2=Widow
3=Divorced
4=Separated
5=Single
6=Missing
5 7 Own_Rent HOUSING
1=Own
2=Rent
3=Provided
9=Missing
 AFTER CODING …..

1. Data Entry - The transfer of codes from

questionnaires (or coding sheets) to a
computer. Often accomplished in one of three
ways:
a) On-line direct data entry – e.g. as for CATI
systems
b) Optical scanning – for highly structured
questionnaires
c) Keyboarding – data entry via a computer
keyboard; often requires verification
After Coding - Continued

2. Error Checking – Verifying the

accuracy of data entry and checking
for some kinds of obvious errors made
during the data entry. Often
accomplished through frequency
analysis.
After Coding - Continued

3. Data Transformation – Converting some

of the data from the format in which they
were entered to a format most suitable for
particular statistical analysis.
Often accomplished through re-coding, to:
• reverse-score negative (or positive)
statements into positive (or negative)
statements;
• collapse the number of categories of a
variable