25N - STUDY CSUF - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

Coding of Open-Ended Text . In addition to numeric data associated with "fixed response" survey items, text responses may be collected during CA TI surveys in response to "other," "specify," and "open- ended" prompts. "Other" text responses are generated when coding categories are insufficient to capture a given survey response. For example, standard coding categories for respondent race/ ethnicity may not include an option for "Middle Eastem." "Specify" responses are used to elaborate or add dimension to a quantitative answer. such as asking respondents to specify the web site visited after indicating that they used the Intemet while visiting the WORK Center. The last category, "open-ended," does not have a numeric basis of any kind, CA TI software allows interviewing staff to record verbatim responses for these tmee types of open-ended questions. In advance of project completion, coding categories are developed by project managers and approved by the director; these proposed coding categories can be circulated to and approved by the appropriate WIB staff. Ci3 software allows up to 30 codes for each answer. Multiple codes are necessary when questions specifically ask for multiple answers such as, "What two or tmee resources or services used at the WORK Center were most helpful in your employment search?" and are useful in many other circumstances. As additional surveys are completed, the preliminary categories are revisited to ensure that they represent respondents' answers, Using the final coding schema, SSRC researchers will assign numeric codes to the open- ended text responses. These will be merged with the quantitative data to produce a fmal SPSS (or other fOID1at) database for analysis, 15 25N-41