What about DataFrame.replace?
In [9]: mapping = {'set': 1, 'test': 2}
In [10]: df.replace({'set': mapping, 'tesst': mapping})
Out[10]:
Unnamed: 0 respondent brand engine country aware aware_2 aware_3 age \
0 0 a volvo p swe 1 0 1 23
1 1 b volvo None swe 0 0 1 45
2 2 c bmw p us 0 0 1 56
3 3 d bmw p us 0 1 1 43
4 4 e bmw d germany 1 0 1 34
5 5 f audi d germany 1 0 1 59
6 6 g volvo d swe 1 0 0 65
7 7 h audi d swe 1 0 0 78
8 8 i volvo d us 1 1 1 32
tesst set
0 2 1
1 1 2
2 2 1
3 1 2
4 2 1
5 1 2
6 2 1
7 1 2
8 2 1
As @Jeff pointed out in the comments, in pandas versions < 0.11.1, manually tack .convert_objects() onto the end to properly convert tesst and set to int64 columns, in case that matters in subsequent operations.