Code open-ended responses
Turn free-text answers into a categorical variable in five steps: pick the question, generate themes, review them, classify responses, and publish. Recense uses AI for the heavy lifting and gives you full manual override.
When to use text coding #
When your survey includes open-ended questions ("Why did you choose this brand?", "Describe your experience") and you want to include those responses in cross-tabulations or charts.
The workflow #
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Select a text variable in the Text Coding panel.
Choose the open-ended question you want to code.
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Generate themes.
The AI reads responses and proposes a codebook of themes.
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Review and edit themes.
Rename, merge, split, or add themes manually.
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Classify responses.
The AI assigns each response to one or more themes, with confidence scores.
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Review classifications.
Manually override or correct assignments.
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Publish.
The coded themes become a new categorical variable in your dataset.
AI-assisted coding #
- Theme generation uses the AI to identify patterns across all responses.
- Classification assigns themes per response with a confidence indicator.
- You control the final codebook — the AI proposes, you decide.
- Requires an active AI provider (BYOK or hosted).
Manual overrides #
- Click any response to change its theme assignment.
- Add new themes not suggested by the AI.
- Corrections are preserved if you re-run classification.
Using coded data #
Once published, the new variable appears in the Variables list with type C (Categorical). You can:
- Drag it into tables as rows or columns.
- Cross-tabulate it against demographic or other variables.
- Chart it like any other categorical variable.