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Coding Coding is the process of combing the data for themes, ideas and categories and then marking similar passages of text with a code label so that they can easily be retrieved at a later stage for further comparison and analysis. Coding the data makes it easier to search the data, to make comparisons and to identify any patterns that require further investigation. Codes can be based on: Themes, Topics Ideas, Concepts Terms, Phrases Keywords found in the data. Usually it is passages of text that are coded but it can be sections of an audio or video recording or parts of images. All passages and chunks that are coded the same way that is given the same label have been judged (by the researcher) to be about the same topic, theme, concept etc. The codes are given meaningful names that gives an indication of the idea or concept that underpins the theme or category. Any parts of the data that relate to a code topic are coded with the appropriate label. This process of coding (associating labels with the text, images etc) involves close reading of the text (or close inspection of the video or images). If a theme is identified from the data that does not quite fit the codes already existing then a new code is created. As the researcher reads through their data set the number of codes they have will evolve and grow as more topics or themes become apparent. The list of codes thus will help to identify the issues contained in the data set. Approaches to starting coding It is possible to start coding with themes identified from a priori ideas such as pre-existing theories or just to let new codes emerge from your data set as you read it (grounded theory). A priori codes These can be identified from a range of sources: Previous research or theory Research or evaluation questions you are addressing Questions and topics from your interview schedule Your gut feeling about the data or the setting Video on a priori coding using pen and paper. Grounded codes Grounded codes emerge from the data because you put aside your prejudices, presuppositions and previous knowledge of the subject area and concentrate instead on finding new themes in your data. What to look for when you are coding Most typically, when coding, researchers have some codes already in mind and are also looking for other ideas that seem to arise out of the data. When coding in this second, open minded manner, Charmaz (writing in the grounded theory tradition) suggests you ask the following questions about the data you are coding: "What is going on? What are people doing? What is the person saying? What do these actions and statements take for granted? How do structure and context serve to support, maintain, impede or change these actions and statements?" (Charmaz 2003: 94-95) A more detailed list of the kinds of things that can be coded are Table 1 below. The examples of each kind tend to be descriptive because it makes it easier to explain the phenomena. However, when you are coding it is advisable to move from descriptive codes to more analytic ones as quickly as possible. See the discussion in the next section. NO. WHAT CAN BE CODED EXAMPLES 1 Behaviours, specific acts Seeking reassurance, Bragging 2 Events short once in a lifetime events or things Wedding day, day moved people have done that are often told as a story. out of home for university, starting first job

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3 Activities these are of a longer duration, involve other people within a particular setting Strategies, practice or tactics Going clubbing, attending a night course, conservation work Being nasty to get dumped, Staying late at work to get promotion Hopelessness Ill never meet anyone better at my age settling for someone who is not really suitable

States general conditions experienced by people or found in organisations

Meanings A wide range of phenomena at the core of much qualitative analysis. Meanings and interpretations are important pars of what directs participants actions. a. What concepts do participants use to understand their world? What norms, values, and rules guide their actions b. What meaning or significance it has for participants, how do they construe events what are the feelings c. What symbols do people use to understand their situation? What names do they use for objects, events, persons, roles, setting and equipment? Participation adaptation to a new setting or involvement

The term chilling out is used by young people to mean relaxing and not doing very much Jealousy I just felt why did she get him

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A PhD is referred to as a test of endurance (because finishing a PhD is a challenge) About new neighbours In my new house I have to keep my music down at night as the neighbours have young children. Relationships or interaction Seeing family Now my sister lives in the next road she visits more and weve become much closer. Conditions or constraints Lose of job (before financial difficulties), moving away (before lost contact with old friends) Consequences Confidence gets dates, positive attitude attracts opportunities Settings the entire context of the events under University, work place, study housing estate Reflexive researchers role in the process, how Probing question How did intervention generated the data you feel when he said that?

Table 1. Types of phenomena that can be coded (Adapted from Bogdan and Biklen, 1992; Strauss, 1987; Mason, 1996; and Gibbs, 2006) Constant comparison Many writers make suggestions about the ways you can approach your data so that you remain open minded about what can be coded and start to notice significant patterns in the data. Perhaps the most famous are those made by the grounded theorists. The most common procedure they recommend is constant comparison. What this means is that every time you select a passage of text (or its equivalent in video etc.) and code it, you should compare it with all those passages you have already coded that way, perhaps in other cases. This ensures that your coding is consistent and allows you to consider the possibility either that some of the passages coded that way dont fit as well (and might therefore be better codes as something else) or that there are dimensions or phenomena in the passages that might well be coded another way as well. But the potential for

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comparisons doesnt stop there. You can compare the passage with those code in similar or related ways or even compare them with cases and examples from outside your data set altogether. Here is a short animation (3 mins) about sorting coloured beads that illustrates well the process of constant comparison. After an initial sort into piles (an initial categorisation) addtional beads are sorted into the existing piles but as there are more beads (cases) to deal with it becomes clear that some piles can be divided into two (codes can be divided or sub-codes can be created). A simple metaphor, but entertaining! For example, Strauss and Corbin (1990) devote a chapter called Techniques for Enhancing Theoretical Sensitivity to examining some of the ways they recommend qualitative analysts might use to ensure that they look carefully at the data and explore all its dimensions (Strauss and Corbin, 1990 pp.75-95). This includes systematic comparisons and far out comparisons. In the former, you think about all the ways in which some phenomenon you have found in the data can vary and be treated and seen differently by people. For example, if your respondent has been talking about the way her parents continued to give her financial support after she had left them and set up her own home, you can compare this with all the other ways that parents might support their children, financial, emotional, child care, finding employment, setting up personal contacts, housework, do-it-yourself, gardening and many others. This allows you to think or discover new ways of coding the experiences this respondent and others in your study might have had. In the case of far out comparisons, the comparison is made with cases and situations that are similar in some respects but quite different in others and may be completely outside the study. For example, still thinking about parental help, we might make a comparison with the way coaches help sports men and women. Reflecting on the similarities and differences between coaching and parental relationships might suggest other dimensions to parental help, like the way that coaches get paid for their work but parents dont! Other techniques to identify themes and codes Ryan and Bernard in a recent paper (2003b) suggest a number of ways in which those coding transcripts can discover new themes in their data. Drawing heavily on Strauss and Corbin (1990) they suggest these include: Word repetitions look for commonly used words and words whose close repetition may indicated emotions Indigenous categories (what the grounded theorists refer to as in vivo codes) terms used by respondents with a particular meaning and significance in their setting. Key-words-in-context look for the range of uses of key terms in the phrases and sentences in which they occur. Compare and contrast essentially the grounded theory idea of constant comparison. Ask, what is this about? and how does it differ from the preceding or following statements? Social science queries introduce social science explanations and theories, for example, to explain the conditions, actions, interaction and consequences of phenomena. Searching for missing information essentially try to get an idea of what is not being done or talked out, but which you would have expected to find. Metaphors and analogies people often use metaphor to indicate something about their key, central beliefs about things and these may indicate the way they feel about things too. Transitions one of the discursive elements in speech which includes turn-taking in conversation as well as the more poetic and narrative use of story structures. Connectors connections between terms such as causal (since, because, as etc) or logical (implies, means, is one of etc.) Unmarked text examine the text that has not been coded at a theme or even not at all. Pawing (i.e. handling) marking the text and eyeballing or scanning the text. Circle words, underline, use coloured highlighters, run coloured lines down the margins to indicate different meanings and coding. Then look for patterns and significances. Cutting and sorting the traditional technique of cutting up transcripts and collecting all those coded the same way into piles, envelopes or folders or pasting them onto cards. Laying out all these scraps and re-reading them, together, is an essential part of the process of analysis. Types of coding Whatever techniques you adopt, the tendency, when you start coding is to create codes that are some kind of summary or prcis of the text you are examining. This kind of coding is called descriptive coding because it essentially forms a summary description of what is in

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the transcript or text. An essential part of QDA is that you move on to develop codes that go beyond description and start to categorise and analyse the data. Two examples of mainly descriptive coding. These examples below show the coding of a short passage of text about a young man called Terry moving out of his parents' home and becoming independent. They show ways that analysts have coded the text and the different kinds of codes they have developed and used. This is the text that is coded: Terry When you move into your own home, you're alone. There is no bustle of people around the house. I miss having someone to chat to when I get home. I put the TV or some music so theres some background noise, the silence makes me feel so alone. Sometimes I will be sat watching trash TV and thinking I should be out doing something rather than watching this rubbish. I read a lot but sometimes I am too tired and just want to veg out. But it's been good to move out of mum and dads as it's not healthy to rely on them as they won't last forever. I become independent and made my own decisions. It's good they still there when I need them. It's good to have some distance as when I was at home I was arguing a lot with my dad and that was what made me decide it was time to go.

Example 1 To help the analyst mark up the page, the text has been printed using double spacing, so that it is possible to write code ideas and code labels between the lines.

Example 1. Descriptive coding and notes. The analyst has read the text carefully and circled what seem to be key terms or key events or actions. A short note of what these are has been written besides the circling. These are the start of descriptive, or what grounded theorists refer to as open coding. An initial coding list from this might be: Own home Lonely Independence Moving out of parents Conflict Dependence Desire for company These terms summarise the events and actions noted by the coding in Example 1, and some are more analytical, i.e. not merely describing something that happened or was said. They could form the start of a coding list that could be used to mark-up the rest of this transcript and other similar cases.

Example 2 In this example a wide margin on the right is used, so that code labels and other comments can be written there. Print out your transcriptions in whatever way supports your preferred approach to coding the text. The codes used in Example 2 are still essentially descriptive but begin to move away from simply summarizing what the respondent has said. Using brackets to the right of the transcribed text, they also code much larger chunks or passages of text. This form of coding is most useful when you go on to make retrievals, i.e. gather together all the text about one topic that is to say, all the text that is coded the same way. With larger chunks, the retrieved text is less likely to be decontextualized. The analyst has also used a highlighter to identify words that refer to feelings and these words suggest that the passage about living alone is actually about the emotions and feelings associated with living alone.

Example 2. Descriptive and analytic coding with notes.

Descriptive coding This is when coding is used to describe what is in the data. Here are two exercises to help demonstrate descriptive coding. Analytic/Theoretical coding These are codes based on the analytical thinking by the researcher about why what is occurring in the data might be happening. Organising codes into a coding frame or coding list As well as marking the transcript or field notes to show what is coded as what, you should keep a separate list of the codes you have constructed and against each one write a short definition. Next time you find a passage that you think can be coded with an existing code, you can see if it exists in your frame or list and if it does, check with the definition to be

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sure that it does fit there. If you cant find an appropriate code (there isnt one or the text doesnt fit with the definitions) then you can create a new one. Eventually, you will have a large number of codes and you will find it necessary to sort them into some sort of order or into groups. One way to do this is using a hierarchy. You may find several codes group together as types or kinds of something. In that case move them together and put them either in a list of their own, or make them sub-codes a major code the kinds or types of which they all represent. Two things may emerge from this re-organisation. First, you may find that you are able to start categorising your codes. Such categories can form one of the bases for a between cases comparison or analysis. Second, you will probably find that by looking at groups of similar codes that are all types or kinds of something several new possibilities suggest themselves. This is what Strauss and Cobin (1990) refer to a dimensionalising. Typically people do things or react to things or categorise things or cause things in a number of different ways. Strauss and Corbin refer to these different ways as dimensions of the thing. For example, people tend to want to take a break, occasionally, from their normal work (paid and in the home). They may do this in an enormous variety of ways, for example they may, take a holiday, go out for a walk, read a book, watch TV, take a nap, wander round the garden, work out at the gym, go for a drink with friends, get drunk, take drugs, chat with the neighbours, go for a drive, play a computer game, follow a hobby, do voluntary work or go to a music gig. These are all dimensions of taking a break. There are so many, that you might find yourself even categorising these into types of break. Several things are suggested by such dimensions. First, you may be able to think of dimensions that you havent yet got a code for. Include them in your coding list because either you might find text that can be coded with them later, or, if you dont, then you might want to offer an explanation as to why not. Second, dimensionalising and categorising will begin to raise questions about the relationship between codes (do those who have been coded using one particular code tend also to be coded in another particular way?) or between cases (why are these cases coded this way and other cases in a different way?). Thus, this kind of development of coding and reorganisation of codes can form the basis for some key analsis of the data. Non- Hierarchical coding (flat coding) A non-hierarchical arrangement of codes, like a list, there are no sub-code levels. Close, generalised friendships Sporting friendships Sports club members Work friends Making new friends - same sex Making new friends - different sex Losing touch with friends Becoming sexual relationships (Remember, in a real code list, you should also include short definitions.) Hierarchical coding (tree coding) A hierarchical arrangement of codes, like a tree, a branching arrangement of sub-codes. Ideally, codes in a tree relate to their parents by being 'examples of...', or 'contexts for...' or 'causes of...' or 'settings for...' and so on. Friendship types o Close, generalized o Sporting Club Non-club o Work Changes in Friendship o Making new friends New same sex friends New different sex friends o Losing touch o Becoming sexual relationship Applying new codes

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As you code the data you are likely to create new codes, you therefore need to go back and check the units of data you coded previous to creating this code. This is to check if there is any more data that should be coded at the newly created node.

Diagram to show how new codes should be applied to previously coded data. It is important to apply all your codes to the whole data set because: - Something you come across later on may change how you want to code the data - You may not have noticed a new pattern in the data until you had coded a number of interviews - If you only code the data units after you created the node, any previously coded data units will not be included in the searches involving this code It is a lengthy process and you may find that previously coded data does not need to be coded at the newly created code but you could not know this without checking. Memos and codes It is important to keep written notes that are meaningful to you, during your coding process. These notes are often called memos. A major use for memos is to record longer definitions of the codes and to note any analytic thoughts you have about the significance and relationship to others of the code in question. Typically, information you could incorporate into the memo about a code will include: why you have created the code some detail of what the code is about and what the coded text reveals why you have changed a code (for instance re-named it) thoughts and questions about the analysis that occur to you as you code Memos are essential if you are working in a team and sharing the coding of the data so colleagues know why you have coded the data in that way. See Memos in Writing as Analysis. Summary Coding involves categorising and indexing sections or chunks of your data, Codes can come from theory and explanations 'outside the data' and/or 'emerge from the data', Data formats that can be coded ranges from transcribed text to video, Coding often starts by being descriptive but needs to becomes analytical, Any new codes created should be applied to the whole data set (previously coded units of data), Memos should be used to record your thoughts and ideas about your codes during the process.

References Ryan, G.W. and Bernard, H.R. (2003b) 'Techniques to Identify Themes', Field Methods, 15(1): 85-109. Strauss, Anselm and Corbin, Juliet (1990) Basics of Qualitative Research. Grounded Theory Procedures and Techniques. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. (2nd Ed. 1998)