DATA PREPARATION AND DESCRIPTION

Editing

• Detects errors and omissions,
  
• Corrects them when possible, and
  
• Certifies that minimum data quality standards are achieved
  

Editing (cont.)

• Guarantees that data are
  
  • accurate
    
  • consistent with other information
    
  • uniformly entered
    
  • complete
    
  • arranged to simplify coding and tabulation
    
• Field Editing
  
  • translation of ad hoc abbreviations and symbols used during data collection
    
  • Validation of the field results.
    
• Central Editing
  

Coding

• Rules that guide the establishment of category sets
  
  • Appropriate to the research problem and purpose
    
  • Exhaustive
    
  • Mutually exclusive
    
  • Derived from one classification principle
    

Content Analysis for Coding

• Measures the semantic content of a message
  
• Researches the objective, systematic, and quantitative description of the content of a communication
  
  • Syntactical unit, Referential unit, Propositional unit,Thematic unit
    

Data Entry Options

• Optical scanning, Voice recognition, Keyboard
  

Data Entry Formats

• Database with full screen editor, Spreadsheet
  

Descriptive Statistics

• Distribution Descriptors, Location, Spread, Shape
  

Descriptive Statistics

• Distribution Descriptors
  
  • Location
    
    • Central Tendency, Mean , Median , Mode
      

Descriptive Statistics

• Distribution Descriptors
  
  • Shape
    
    • Skewness
      
    • Kurtosis