Use of Open ended question in Final Project

Monday, October 24, 2011

Use of Open ended question in Final Project

We are receiving lot of questions from students about use of open ended questions in Final Project. We are going to publish one question from them and with solution

Question

Respected sir, please tell me about the coding of open ended questions. How can I assign code to them with the help of an exampled? I also want to ask about the rules of code construction. First the coding categories should be exhaustive and second coding categories should also be mutually exclusive and independent. Please explain these rules in easy words with the help of example thanks and best regards. Sana-MBA-VU

Answer

To analyze the open ended questions find out the main theme of the answers of the open ended questions, divide the responses on the basis of themes and then do your coding and analysis on the basis of that theme.

The First rule says that the coding categories should be exhaustive. It means that you should make categories for all the response types. If you miss out making coding category for any subject or response you will not be able to code all the responses properly and hence the coding and analysis will not be correct.

Second rule says that the categories you made for responses should be exclusive and independent. It means that the coding categories should clearly segregate and distinguish the groups of data collection so that there is no chance of any confusion in coding the data. If two coding categories are similar then there are chances that you will record few responses under one category and few under other category, as a result the coding will be falsified and your analysis will be incorrect.

Replied by Mian aamir iqbal anjum