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Coding of Open-Ended Text In addition to numeric data associated with "fixed response" survey items, text responses may be collected during CATI 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 Eastern." "Specify" responses are used to elaborate or add dimension to a quantitative answer. such as asking respondents to specify the website visited after indicating that they used the Internet while visiting the WORK Center. The last category, "open-ended," does not have a numeric basis of any kind. CATI software allows interviev,~ing staff to record verbatim responses for these three 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 three 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 final SPSS (or other fornlat) database for analysis. 15 25N-41