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Editing
Not all respondents answer every item in the questionnaire. Answers may
have been left blank because the respondent did not understand the question,
did not know the answer, was not willing to answer, or was simply
indifferent to the need to respond the entire questionnaire. If a substantial
number of questions – say 25% of the items in the questionnaire – have been
left unanswered, it may be a good idea to throw out the questionnaire and
not include it in the data set for analysis. In this event, it is important to
mention the number of returned but unused responses due to excessive
missing data in the final report submitted to the sponsor of the study. If,
however, only two or three items are left blank in a questionnaire with, say,
30 or more items, we need to decide how these blank responses are to be
handled.
Coding
The next step is to code the responses. Scanner sheets can be used for
collecting questionnaire data; such sheets facilitate the entry of the responses
directly into the computer without manual keying in of the data. However, if
for whatever reason this cannot be done, then it is perhaps better 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 confusions, especially when there are many questions
and a large number of questionnaires as well.
It is possible to key in the data directly from the questionnaires, but that
would need flipping through several questionnaires, page by page, resulting
in possible errors and omissions of items. Transfer of the data first onto a
code sheet would thus help.
Human errors can occur while coding. At least 10% of the coded
questionnaires should therefore be checked for coding accuracy. Their
selection may follow a systematic sampling procedure. That is, every nth
form coded could be verified for accuracy. If many errors are found in the
sample, all items may have to be checked.
Categorizing
If the questions measuring a concept are not contiguous but scattered over
various parts of the questionnaire, care has to be taken to include all the
items without any omission or wrong inclusion.
Entering Data
If questionnaire data are not collected on scanner answer sheets, which can
be directly entered into the computer as a data file, the raw data will have to
be manually keyed into the computer. Raw data can be entered through and
software program. For instance, the SPSS Data Editor, which looks like a
spread-editor represents a case, and each column represents a variable. All
missing values will appear with a period (dot) in the cell. It is possible to
add, change, or delete values after the data have been entered.
It is also easy to compute the new variables that have been categorized
earlier, using the Compute dialog box, which opens when the Transform
icon is chosen. Once the missing values, the recodes, and the computing of
new variables are taken care of, the data are ready for analysis.
We can acquire a feel for the data by checking the central tendency and the
dispersion. The mean, the range, the standard deviation, and the variance in
the data will give researcher a good idea of how the respondents have
reacted to the items in the questionnaire and how good items and measures
are. If the response to each individual item in a scale does not have a good
spread (range) and shows very little variability, then the researcher would
suspect that the particular question was probably not properly worded and
respondents did not quite understand the intent of the question. Biases, if
any, could also be detected if the respondents have tended to respond
similarly to all the items – that is, struck to only certain points on the scale.
The maximum and minimum scores, mean, standard deviation, variance, and
other statistics can be easily obtained, and these will indicate whether the
responses range satisfactorily over the scale.
Reliability
Validity
Hypothesis Testing
Once the data are ready for analysis, (i.e., out-of-range/missing responses,
etc., are cleaned up, and the goodness of the measures is established), the
researcher is ready to test the hypotheses already developed for the study.
There are different statistical tests which are selected according to different
hypotheses and nature of data.
Interpretation of Data Analyzed
After the data has been completely analyzed, its results have to be properly
interpreted. That interpretation of results is the most meaningful to the
organization.