Analyzing Open-Ended Questions in Survey Research 1 |
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| Coordinator 1 | Dr Alice Barth (Department of Sociology, University of Bonn) |
Open-ended questions in surveys provide information on respondents’ personal perspectives, their interpretation and understanding of concepts. In addition, respondents get an opportunity for individualized feedback. Open-ended questions are almost indispensable in collecting data on issues that are too diverse for standardized questions, e.g. job designations. While many researchers used to refrain from open-ended questions due to the arduous process of transcribing and coding responses, the rise of computer-assisted data collection and software solutions for analyzing large amounts of text data can now accelerate the work process. Nevertheless, in dealing with open-ended questions, researchers need a specific methodological toolbox that is adapted to analyzing unstructured text data.
This session aims at discussing methods for processing and analyzing responses to open-ended questions. Topics of particular interest are, for example,
- coding responses to open-ended questions (manual, semi-automated or automated coding)
- text mining / natural language processing approaches
- qualitative content analysis of responses
- data quality and mode effects in open-ended questions
- open-ended probes as a means of evaluating comparability, validity and comprehension of questions
- analyzing respondent feedback on the survey process
- using information from open-ended questions to complement or contradict results from standardized questions
We are looking forward to contributions that highlight the methodological and/or substantial potential of open-ended questions in survey research.