There should be clear guidelines for coders (individuals who do the coding) so that code is consistent.įor quantitative analysis, data is coded usually into measured and recorded as nominal or ordinal variables. One code should apply to only one category and categories should be comprehensive. This also minimizes the chance of errors from coding and is believed to increase the reliability of data. Some studies will employ multiple coders working independently on the same data. The coding scheme ensures that the codes are added consistently across the data set and allows for verification of previously tagged data. During coding, coders manually add codes into data where required features are identified. Prior to coding, an annotation scheme is defined.
This categorization of information is an important step, for example, in preparing data for computer processing with statistical software. One purpose of coding is to transform the data into a form suitable for computer-aided analysis.
In the social sciences, coding is an analytical process in which data, in both quantitative form (such as questionnaires results) or qualitative form (such as interview transcripts) are categorized to facilitate analysis.
