Asking Questions - The Definitive Guide To Questionnaire Design ...

ORGANIZING AND DESIGNING QUESTIONNAIRES 287
always appear on the questionnaire and should not appear on selfadministered
questionnaires. In addition, “no answer” and “don’t
know” responses must use distinct numbers in their precodes. Some
organizations, for example, routinely use 8 and 9 codes for “don’t
know” and “no answer” or 88 and 99 for these codes in two-column
precodes. Thus, if there are eight possible answers, excluding the
“don’t know” and “no answer” categories, it will be necessary to use
two columns instead of one.
The same precodes need not be used for the same answer categories
of different questions. For processing purposes, different codes
make it easier to detect errors in data entry. Care should be taken,
however, not to confuse the interviewer or respondent. If confusion
could possibly result, the same codes should be used for a series of
questions. In the common case of a series of yes-no questions,
changing the precodes does not seem to confuse interviewers or respondents,
and does reduce the likelihood of data entry errors. The
following example shows how you could replace precodes for a
series of yes-no questions.
Yes No replace with Yes No
Q.a. 1 2 1 2
Q.b. 1 2 3 4
Q.c. 1 2 5 6
Assigning Numbers to Precodes. Problems with data analysis may
be minimized if you think carefully about the actual numbers you
assign as precodes. The following example shows three format
options. The category “stay the same” could come in the middle or
come at the end.
A. During the last few years, has your financial situation been
getting better, getting worse, or has it stayed the same?
B. During the last few years, has your financial situation been
getting better, has it stayed the same, or has it been getting
worse?