3 thoughts on “Data analytics using SPSS: Data manipulation (Recoding)”
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Please what is the benefit, need or real purpose of recoding? I listened to the tutorial but this was not explained. Why would anyone want to change or add new values to their variables in a Likert scale
thanks for this questions, DRSTM will send in a reply soon. Welldone
Hello Ifeoma,
Thanks for your keen interaction.
First, recoding is not used for “Likert scales” variables alone.
Recoding introduces flexibility around categorical data. For example, if you had a categorical variable with up to eight values and during analysis, you wish to collapse these values into three values only, recoding will help you do that. Also, if you need to compute using a particular variable and its coding does not reflect its weight value (particularly in ordinal categorical data), you can use recoding to give new codes that will reflect the weight you desire, e.g using numbers to represent the educational level of your population accordingly.
This is further necessary when you are performing statistical tests that require you to stipulate the increasing order of the values of your variable e.g. ANOVA test.
Recoding is not always applied in analysis, but it is a should-know procedure.
Regards,
Dr. STM