Categorical Multi-response Set

A categorical multi-response set captures multiple answers to a survey question, with each answer recorded as a category representing different response options.

A categorical multi-response set is a data structure where multiple responses (categories) can be selected for a single survey question or observation. This data type is commonly used in scenarios where respondents can select various options from a list or respond to an open-ended question with multiple answers.

For example: "Name up to 3 hobbies you enjoy". Here, the dataset may contain 0-3 responses per respondent. Usually, they are coded as ‘Choice_1’, ‘Choice_2’ etc.

To create a categorical MR-set

• select all variables with categories from a codebook;

• click on the ‘Declare MR-set’ icon ;

• choose the ‘Categorical’ type of MR-set;

• tick the checkbox ‘Automatically add matching variables to this MR-set’, if you want new variables with the same code pattern to be automatically added to the set in future waves, without the need to rebuild it.

Note that all MR-set types are clearly defined with icons in the variable tree.

• - Dichotomous MR-set;

• - Categorical MR-set;

• - Quantitative MR-set;

• - Mean MR-set;

• - Aggregated MR-set

Once the categorical MR-set is declared, it can be used as a single categorical variable. Frequency analysis for the categorical MR-set uses a count of how many times each category was named.