Why use this feature?
In Market Research surveys, 'other specify' questions present a unique challenge from a data perspective.
The data collected from these questions can be either closed data (i.e. drawn from a fixed list of predefined responses) or open-ended text data - or both. Furthermore, different people have different requirements when it comes to coding the open-ended data for these questions. This help section explains how to handle such 'other specify' questions when using the Data Link for either Decipher or SurveyToGo.
How does the 'other specify' set up differ?
In Decipher and SurveyToGo, verbatim data for 'other specify' responses are held in a separate variable to the main question, illustrated with the example below. For Codeit it to operate in its standard way, these responses need to be merged into one question for the coding task set up.
Example: S5 Which is your favourite chocolate bar?
1 Mars Bar
2 Snickers
3 Kit Kat
98 Other (please specify)
The respondent can choose an item from the predefined list or enter another brand under 'other'. The data will look like this:
Here we can see that three respondents have picked one of the predefined list items and one has specified an "Other" response. When using the data link wizard in Codeit, we have a few options if we want to pull in data for this question.
How to use this feature
Follow the step-by-step instructions below when linking and setting up the coding for such 'other specify' questions.
1. Choose source variable
As per the above example, choose either to bring in (1) all responses to the question, including the precoded main source question S5 and other specify responses from S5oe or (2) only import the 'other responses' to be coded.
| Option | Question | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | S5 | Load in all responses (i.e. both closed end and the verbatim answer in the 'other specify') |
| 2 | S5oe | This will load in the other specify responses only |
2. Choose target variable
To create the coding task, choose a target variable to write the coded data into from the options provided in the wizard:
| Option | Question | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | <new> | Click "Create Target Variables" button to create a new target variable with an empty codeframe |
| 2 | S5 - Closed End | Create a target variable in Codeit containing the codeframe from the closed end question (S5), with any closed responses imported. |
3. Mapping
To use the 'closed end' target question ('S5 - closed end' in our example), it is important that you explicitly map the source and target variables together in the 'tasks' page of the link data wizard.
4. Coding the question
Once the configuration is complete and you have synced the source data from your survey platform, you should see the correct data appearing in the coding screens in Codeit. In our example, we see that the codeframe and closed end data has been imported from S5 along with the (uncoded) other specify values from S5oe:
