This volume highlights the theory that decisions made during the design of a data
collection instrument influence the kind of data and the format of the data that
are available for analysis. Opening with a discussion on the selection of the
data collection technique(s) and how this impacts on data processing and the
data for later analysis, the book covers key issues such as: should you create
your own instrument for a questionnaire? how do you test a questionnaire? what
are the characteristics of good data processing? how to deal with missing data?
how to scale an evaluation and create subfiles for analysis? In addition, each
major section concludes with examples and when appropriate, directs the reader
to commonly available computer software that can aid in data processing.