grouping/combining long open ended responses
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grouping/combining long open ended responses
 
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It is a long time since I had this kind of problem come up and I presume some progress has been made in how to do it.
There are long string responses to a question like "What information would be helpful for the ad hoc committee to consider when working on the topic of X" Responses go up to maybe 350 characters. Responses may contain up to 4 sentences. IIRC SPSS had some software for grouping open ended responses, but i slips my mind what that was. If there is not an SPSS module, can list members recommend free or inexpensive software to assist this task. This is a one-time effort for a non-profit group and price is a major consideration.
Art Kendall
Social Research Consultants |
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Art,
I take it that you are referring to something outside of the use of concat within a compute statement for a "superlong" string (I had worked with similar data based on the dissertations of people the NYU psych dept and their titles were remarkably long but this was back in the 1990s)? I have just checked the ver 23 syntax manual for SPSS and could not find anything that would simplify the following: compute Answer01 = concat(part1,part2,part3, ...,partN). A macro can be written for more complex data arrangements in order to concatenate subparts but this all depends upon on the structure of the data. From my searches on the web, there is more sophisticated text analysis that can be down within the SPSS modeler text analytics program -- for more on this point see: https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/SS3RA7_15.0.0/com.ibm.spss.ta.help/tas_ta_packages.htm I assume that Jon would be much more knowledgeable about this topic and I have a feeling that Python might provide plain SPSS greater text analysis capabilities. Others may also have experience with working with this type of data. However, it seems to me that all you want is to concatenate string variables in order to produce a complete "answer". Are you concerned that you'll hit length limitations with extra long strings? I think I am missing something. -Mike Palij New York University [hidden email] ----- Original Message ----- From: "Art Kendall" <[hidden email]> To: <[hidden email]> Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2017 10:23 AM Subject: grouping/combining long open ended responses > It is a long time since I had this kind of problem come up and I > presume some > progress has been made in how to do it. > > There are long string responses to a question like > > "What information would be helpful for the ad hoc committee to > consider when > working on the topic of X" > > Responses go up to maybe 350 characters. Responses may contain up to > 4 > sentences. > > IIRC SPSS had some software for grouping open ended responses, but i > slips > my mind what that was. > > If there is not an SPSS module, can list members recommend free or > inexpensive software to assist this task. > > This is a one-time effort for a non-profit group and price is a major > consideration. ===================== To manage your subscription to SPSSX-L, send a message to [hidden email] (not to SPSSX-L), with no body text except the command. To leave the list, send the command SIGNOFF SPSSX-L For a list of commands to manage subscriptions, send the command INFO REFCARD |
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I don't know what the grouping principle is here, but the software you are thinking of might be SPSS Text Analysis for Surveys. On Wed, Jul 5, 2017 at 9:24 AM, Mike Palij <[hidden email]> wrote: Art, |
Re: grouping/combining long open ended responses
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In reply to this post by Mike
Thank you for your response.
I was not clear. I do not want to combine variables within cases. I want to group cases that have similar content.
Art Kendall
Social Research Consultants |
Re: grouping/combining long open ended responses
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In reply to this post by Jon Peck
Yes Text Analysis for Surveys is what I was thinking of.
I saw it demo'ed at some meeting.
Art Kendall
Social Research Consultants |
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In reply to this post by Jon Peck
Jon,
Here is a link to a review of STAS that was
done a few years
ago. If you get a chance to read it can
you comment on whether
it has become any easier to use?
See:
NOTE: alternative programs/tools are
also mentioned.
-Mike Palij
New York University
===================== To manage your subscription to SPSSX-L, send a message to [hidden email] (not to SPSSX-L), with no body text except the command. To leave the list, send the command SIGNOFF SPSSX-L For a list of commands to manage subscriptions, send the command INFO REFCARD |
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I have not had any experience with STAS in several years (and never had a lot before that, either). Text analysis is a difficult area. IBM SPSS Modeler has much more extensive capabilities. IIRC, the motivation for STAS was to help with open-ended survey questions, not to analyze large documents. These would typically be part of a survey instrument that would also have traditional questions. I expect but don't know for sure that it can read sav files, which would make sense given its orientation. There are free Python and R packages for text analysis, but users are expected to be proficient in the programming language. On Wed, Jul 5, 2017 at 7:28 PM, Mike Palij <[hidden email]> wrote:
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Jon,
Given how "hot" the Natural Language
Processing (NLP) area has gotten
in "data science" it would make sense that an
SPSS data file with long
string variables containing responses to
specific questions, it would seem
that there would be an increasing need for an
program that could read
sav files and provide analyses for the
responses to specific questions.
The example of analyzing a POTUS state of the
union speech seems like
it is oriented toward "narrative analysis" in
contrast to "short answer essay
or ad lib information supplementation".
The latter would seem to be
much more useful for questionnaire data as
well as data from websites
(e.g., comment sections and so
on).
I think that latter is what Art is interested
in but it does seem to be a
PITA to have to learn a new software package,
either STAS or
Modeler, in order to do so. I have seen
references to R based
text analysis (which would be an argument in
favor of developing
R skills if one is going to be doing this type
of "qualitative" analyses).
I have also seen reference to "cleaning up"
text sources which
raises its own host of questions and, perhaps,
developing skills
with other software packages.
-Mike Palij
New York University
===================== To manage your subscription to SPSSX-L, send a message to [hidden email] (not to SPSSX-L), with no body text except the command. To leave the list, send the command SIGNOFF SPSSX-L For a list of commands to manage subscriptions, send the command INFO REFCARD |
Re: grouping/combining long open ended responses
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In her book Designing and Doing Survey Research (Sage 2012) Lesly Andreas has a section on Atlas.ti which may do what is needed. I've never used it, but there's a quick tour on http://downloads.atlasti.com/quicktour/QuickTour_a8_en.pdf
(Mr) John F Hall [Retired academic survey researcher]
> Message du 06/07/17 04:13===================== To manage your subscription to SPSSX-L, send a message to [hidden email] (not to SPSSX-L), with no body text except the command. To leave the list, send the command SIGNOFF SPSSX-L For a list of commands to manage subscriptions, send the command INFO REFCARD ===================== To manage your subscription to SPSSX-L, send a message to [hidden email] (not to SPSSX-L), with no body text except the command. To leave the list, send the command SIGNOFF SPSSX-L For a list of commands to manage subscriptions, send the command INFO REFCARD |
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In reply to this post by Mike
For those who want to follow up on SPSS Text Analysis for Surveys, there is a free trial available at On Wed, Jul 5, 2017 at 8:13 PM, Mike Palij <[hidden email]> wrote:
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