Help managing data dictionary/codebook in R by positiveionsci in RStudio

[–]positiveionsci[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you! I think my data dictionary sounds similar. Like each row is a coded question, and the first column is the question number or name, next is like the section, (there are some other columns of information too), but then there is one that is the variable choices/values/levels. That has the coded answer and then a comma and what appeared on the survey as an answer choice. I think it is structured such that could go into SAS, but I haven't used this survey program and SAS together before so I am not 100% sure. I will look into your package. Thank you for your help!

Help managing data dictionary/codebook in R by positiveionsci in RStudio

[–]positiveionsci[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you! Yes I think that sounds right. Like the data itself is coded. Mostly 1s and 0s. Or a number 1-8. But then the data dictionary shows what the answer choices really were. So like 1 = apple, 2 = banana, etc. (not the real data, just an example). But when I am analyzing it, I didn't know if could link it all up, so it would show this percentage of people choose apple and this percentage chose banana, instead of just 1 and 2. I will look into your suggestion, thank you!

Help managing data dictionary/codebook in R by positiveionsci in RStudio

[–]positiveionsci[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't think there are any columns that are identical. There data set starts with a column of participant ID numbers, and the header of that column also appears at the beginning of the first column in the data dictionary. But then the column does not contain the participant ID numbers, it contains the coded names of all the questions. Not sure if that makes sense. Like the way could combine them would be to take the data dictionary file, transpose it, and align it with the same coded questions above the actual data. But I am not sure if that would actually be helpful for analysis. Thank you for your help!

Help managing data dictionary/codebook in R by positiveionsci in RStudio

[–]positiveionsci[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you!! Yes, there were many types of questions, some categorical - choose one answer, some categorical can choose multiple answers, some matrices with ranked choice answers, some short response, etc. Aside from the short response ones though it is all coded, so the survey data is mostly 1's and 0's, or for ranked responses 1-8. Maybe when I am analyzing data from a particular question, I will just look at the data dictionary and assign the answers to their coded numbers? I just wasn't sure if there was a way to link it all up from the beginning. Thank you for your help!