Recoded Variable

Analysis with survey research data often first requires recoding of variables. Recode is a term used to describe the process of making changes to the values of a variable. Rarely can researchers proceed directly to data analysis after receiving or compiling a "raw" data set. The values of the variables to be used in the analysis usually have to be changed first. The reasons for recoding a variable are many. There may be errors in the original coding of the data that must be corrected. A frequency distribution run or descriptive statistics on a variable can help the researcher identify possible errors that must be corrected with recodes. For example, if a variable measuring respondent's party identification has values of 1 for Democrat, 3 for ...