Visions of the Future: a computer content analysis of open ended survey data

The paper compares human and computer coding of an open-ended survey question about respondents' visions of the future. A recently developed computer program is employed that can be customized to fit specific code categories. Overall, the results using the computer are promising enough to encourage further exploration in the hope that computer coding can make open-ended questioning a more attractive option in survey research, both decreasing coding costs and increasing coding reliability.