STEP 1: CODING STRATEGY

To codify is to arrange things in a systematic order, to make something part ofa system or classification, to categorize.When codes are applied and reappliedto qualitative data, you are codifying – a process that permits data to be “segregated,grouped, regrouped and relinked in order to consolidate meaning andexplanation”

For our project, our coding strategy is :

MFS1 - Memory functioning scale self-sponsor report time 1

ESS1 - Epworth sleepiness time 1

Value labels
 0 - never

 1 - rarely

 2 - sometimes

 3 - often

 4 - always

Before we run an analysis in SPSS, we required to code and enter data in SPSS.

The process of coding data is described below:

·       Name: SPSS requires that each variable to be unique, and contain a maximum of 8 characters.

·      Type: There are eight types of variables to be found in SPSS that include numeric, comma, dot, scientific notation, date, dollar, custom currency and string. To select variable type, click in the cell on the grey box.

·         Width: This refers to the number of characters to be inputted for the variable.

·         Decimals: This is the number of decimal places to be displayed by the program

·       Label: This is a string of text that explains in details what a variable represents. We enter a maximum of 255 characters containing spaces and punctuation marks.

·       Values:  In case of categorical data, we need to specify which numbers represent which category. For example when coding gender in SPSS we put 1 represent male and 2 represent female. This can be seen in the data view by clicking the toe tag icon. On clicking the tag it switched between numeric values and their labels.

·        Measure: This property indicates level of measurement of data source. The three measure properties include scale, ordinal and nominal. Interval and ratio levels of measurement are grouped as scale measures.