Survey Importer Tool
Dedoose's “Survey Importer” tool allows you to upload one spreadsheet that contains all quantitative (e.g., scores, continuous variables, demographics, Likert-scale and multiple-choice questions, etc.) and qualitative data (open-ended responses) in your survey. The importer then links this data together by examining the data in each column to create a descriptor profile for each case/participant.
If you have not already done so, please view the Survey Data Preparation guide to ensure your spreadsheet if formatted correctly.
Coding Qualitative Survey Data
The Survey Importer tool also pre-codes qualitative data by the question/column title, which allows you to easily access and code specific questions of interest (pictured below). Dedoose will create a parent/root code titled "Questions" and subcodes/child codes titled with the associated column title from your spreadsheet.
You can edit these code titles as you see fit by hovering over the code and selecting the "edit code" icon.
Though you can delete all Dedoose-generated excerpts and codes via the Excerpts workspace, we recommend keeping these categorical codes for data organization and analysis purposes. If the codes are hindering your analysis, you can filter them out of analysis charts by using the Data Sets workspace.
Begin Coding
You can begin coding your qualitative survey data by hovering over one of the question-titled codes and selecting the quotation mark "excerpts" icon. Doing so will open a window with all excerpts associated with that question from your survey (pictured below).
Select the first excerpt and begin coding via the Excerpt viewer (pictured below). This is an efficient way to code question-by-question.
To add new codes to your codebook, select the addition icon (plus sign) in the upper right corner of the codebook panel. Once you have created a code, double-click the code to apply it to the excerpt. Simply hit the "Next" button to navigate to the next excerpt associated with that question.
If you'd like to view all of this case/participants' responses, you can select the "View in Context" button. If you rather see all cases/participant responses at once, you can access their data via the Media workspace, select a document, and begin coding.
Tips from Scholars at IMMR
Dr. Michelle Salmona and Dr. Sara Grummert from the Institute for Mixed Methods Research held a topical webinar discussing the Survey Import tool. They cover preparing a spreadsheet, uploading data and assessing import quality, coding tips, and key data visualizations.
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