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S
URVEY
G
UIDE
16
What checks will be conducted to find errors in coding or data entry?
Will some questions be weighted more heavily than others?
Scaled responses (e.g., dissatisfied, somewhat dissatisfied, neutral, somewhat
satisfied, satisfied) are usually converted to numerical values (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) for
easier analysis. Use of a template or mask can help coders convert the data
more quickly and accurately.
Careful thought needs to be given to coding responses to open-ended items.
The process usually involves examining some preliminary data to identify
potential categories, and then testing to ascertain how consistently the
categories are assigned by various coders.
To analyze responses to open-ended questions, you can copy the comments
onto individual cards and then group similar comments together. This will give
you a sense of the most frequent ideas. Alternatively, there are software
packages that help in analyzing responses to open-ended questions.
ThemeSeekr (
http://themeseekr.com/
) was developed to aid in processing the
thousands of comments received during the UW-Madison 2009 reaccreditation
self-
study, and uses “word clouds” as a visual analysis tool to show the relative
frequency of the themes into which responses have been categorized.
D
RAWING
C
ONCLUSIONS
Visual displays can be helpful in understanding the data. For responses to
multiple choice questions, you might:
Create a frequency histogram of the responses for each question to
demonstrate the variation in the responses
Use a bar chart to display the percent of respondents selecting
particular responses
A
DDITIONAL
C
ONSIDERATIONS
H
UMAN
S
UBJECTS
P
ROTECTION
If the results of your survey will be written for publication, you may need to
receive advance approval from an Institutional Review Board (IRB). Contact the
Graduate School for assistance with identifying the appropriate board (see
http://www.grad.wisc.edu/research/hrpp/irblinks.html
).
The UW Survey Center notes that survey work frequently raises issues of
interest to the IRB, including:
What is the consent process and need it be written?
How will confidentiality be protected?
How will people be sampled or recruited?