Kumar-2011-Research-Methodology_-A-Step-by-Step-Guide-for-Beginners

Chapter 15: Processing Data 265
This is an open-ended quantitative question. In questions like this it is important to determine
the range of responses – the respondent with the lowest and the respondent with the highest
age. To do this, go through a number of questionnaires/interview schedules. Once the range
is established, divide it into a number of categories. The categories developed are dependent
upon a number of considerations such as the purpose of analysis, the way you want to communicate
the findings of your study and whether the findings are going to be compared with
those of another study. Let us assume that the range in the study is 23 to 49 years and assume
that you develop the following categories to suit your purpose: 20–24, 25–29, 30–34, 35–39,
40–44 and 45–49. If your range is correct you should need no other categories. Let us assume
that you decide to code 20–24 = 1, 25–29 = 2, 30–34 = 3, and so on. To accommodate ‘no
response’ you decide to assign a code of 9. Let us assume you decided to code the responses
to this question in column 5 of the code sheet.
Question 1(c)
Your marital status: (Please tick)
Currently married________
Living in a de facto relationship____
Separated______________
Divorced_______________
Never married__________
This is a closed categorical question. That is, the response pattern is already provided. In these
situations you just need to assign a numerical value to each category. For example, you may
decide to code ‘currently married’ = 1, ‘living in a de facto relationship’ = 2, ‘separated’ =
3, ‘divorced’ = 4 and ‘never married’ = 5. You may add ‘no response’ as another category
and assign it with a code of 9. The response to this question is coded in column 6 of the
code sheet.
Question 2(b)
If tertiary/university, please specify the level achieved and the area of study. (Please specify all postgraduate
qualifications.)
In this question a respondent is asked to indicate the area in which s/he has achieved a tertiary
qualification. The question asks for two aspects: (1) level of achievement, which is categorical;
and (2) area of study, which is open ended. Also, a person may have more than one
qualification which makes it a multiple response question. In such questions both aspects of
the question are to be coded. In this case, this means the level of achievement (e.g. associate
diploma, diploma) and the area of study (e.g. engineering, accounting). When coding multiple
responses, decide on the maximum possible number of responses to be coded. Let us assume
you code a maximum number of three levels of tertiary education. (This would depend upon
the maximum number of levels of achievement identified by the study population.) Firstly,
code the levels of achievement tedu (tedu: t = tertiary and edu = education; the naming of