SOAN 2120 Lecture : March 21st notes.docx

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Sociology and Anthropology
• Course: SOAN 2120
• Professor: Scott Schau

Document Summary

Numerical representation and manipulation of observations for the purpose of describing and explaining the phenomena that those observations reflect. Getting the data from the subjects into a format that we can manipulate and understand. For computers to work, you must translate your data into something that they can read. Codebook: document that describes the location of variables within a dataset and lists the codes assigned to the attributes composing those variables. Purposes: primary guide used in the coding process, guide for location variables and interpreting codes in the data file during analysis. Data entry specialists enter the data into statistical software or excel spreadsheet. Sometimes it is part of the process of data collection. Possible-code cleaning: codes which have not been assigned to the attributes of a variable are removed. Contingency cleaning: checking that only those cases that should have data entered for a particular variable do in fact have such data.