Home / Summaries / Research methodology an introduction to scientific thinking and practice / data-reduction-variable

Data preparation and scale construction

5 important questions on Data preparation and scale construction

What is the difference between a data matrix and code book?

The data matrix is your data set in which you can read the codes of the answers given by the respondents. You use a data matrix to code the answers and enter it to the computer.

Within the code book you can read how the data is stored in which place in the file and how to read the dataset.

What does data cleaning means and what are the three ways of doing?

Data cleaning means ensuring that the data has been entered correctly in the file.

- double check
- Logical consistency check ( e.g. When the answer options are 0,5,10 and someone fills in a 7, this is incorrect)
- Cross tabulation check (if someone is the age of 16 but fills in he has completed university)

What is data reduction and what are its two forms?

With data reduction you include one score on one variable per respondent instead of including all scores on all questions.

- Index; individual scores are simply added up and average is taken.

- Scale; some items are more closely related to the theoretical concept than others. So weight per score differs.

What is the difference between scales and measurement?

Scaling is about the value we give to a certain variable.

Measuring is about giving a scale value to every unit in our observation.

What are the three variants on which you can check whether you should include all indicators under the same concept?

- Thurston scale; mark an answer from 1 to 10. At the end a group of items is left over that have been given more or less the same grade by experts. The average score is then assigned as weight factor.

- Likert scale; two possible options 0 and 1. 1 holds for 'agree' and you calculate the average score for those people on the over all scale.

- Guttman scale; the starting point is that you are unlikely to answer yes to a follow-up question.

The question on the page originate from the summary of the following study material:

Research methodology an introduction to scientific thinking and practice | 9789043037884 | Jacobus Adrianus Maria Vennix

View summary