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Data recording
Recording of questionnaire data
The following explanations refer to questionnaires with closed questions (i.e. with predefined response options). In order to analyse such data with a statistics program such as SPSS or Excel, you first need to create a data sheet (cf. Example data sheet, pdf, 36kB). This is arranged in columns and rows:
| => | The individual questions for the questionnaire can be found in the columns (ideally in the same order as the questionnaire); the first column should contain an identification number or something similar for each participant). |
| => | The rows contain the responses of the participants on the different questions. |
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Participant |
Question 1 |
Question 2 |
Question 3 |
Question 4 |
etc. |
| 1 | |||||
| 2 | |||||
| 3 | |||||
| 4 |
Please make surethat the column headings always refer to the corresponding questionnaire item (i.e. to the corresponding question). e therefore suggest you assign a short name to each question and record it in a separate document.
Coding of responses
Each response option is coded in order to be entered into the data sheet and analysed. This means that a number is assigned to each response option (e.g. 1 for “disagree”, 2 “somewhat disagree”, 3 for “undecided”, 4 for “somewhat agree” and 5 for “agree”; or 1 for “male”, 2 for “female”, 1 for “yes”, 0 for “no”, etc.). The meaning of the codes should also be documented precisely!
IMPORTANT: Several questions about one topic (e.g. 4 questions about the usability aspect of “controllability”) constitute what is known as a scale. In the analysis, each question is not usually considered separately, instead a mean value is calculated for questions belonging to a scale. Here, it is important to invert the coding for the questions formulated negatively.
mean value
“The long-term average of occurrences; also called the expected value” (From: Statistical Glossary, Mean Value)
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Example |
Positively formulated item: “The software offers the option of interrupting the task at any time and continuing at a later time without loss of data.” Coding: 1 for “disagree” – 5 “agree”.
Negatively formulated item: “The software enforces an unnecessarily strict way of complying with the task steps.” Coding: 5 for “disagree” – 1 for “agree”. |
Missing Values
For an item which is not checked, the value “0” should not be entered, as this would negatively bias the result for a subsequent mean value calculation. Simply leave the cell blank.
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