Chapter 11 Content Analysis

Lecture 9
 What is coding?
• Heuristic: “to discover”
– an exploratory problem-solving technique/system
– No specific formula to follow
– Coding is only the initial step
- precedes a more rigorous analysis an
interpreataion
• http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/24614_01_Saldana_Ch_01.pdf
 What does it seek to accomplish?

• goal = “code” content

– Turn data into usable form
– to address research questions
– Coding = find patterns
What is content analysis?
• careful, detailed, systematic examination and
interpretation
• patterns, themes, biases, and meanings.
• Text, documents, photographs, newspapers, tv
episodes, commercial products, books,
magazines
 What are the steps involved in
qualitative content analysis?
1. Data are collected, organized
- data can be field notes, transcripts, image
sequences etc.
2. Codes developed, identified
3. Codes transformed into labels or themes.
4. Data sorted by labels, themes
5. Sorted data examined for patterns
6. Set of generalizations is established.
 7 major elements in written messages

1. Words: smallest unit of content

analysis
2. Themes: simple sentence, string of
words
3. Characters: significant people
4. Paragraphs: infrequently
 ..elements in written messages
5. Items: whole unit of the sender’s
message
6. Concepts: words grouped together
into conceptual clusters
7. Semantics: how weak or strong a
word is
 Coding = bones
• Charmaz’s (2006) metaphor for coding:
“generates the bones of your analysis.…
[I]ntegration will assemble those bones into a
working skeleton” (p. 45)
• “essence-capturing”
Saldana

• Coding is the transitions

• Codes
• Similarities, patterns = facilitate analysis
• Code
• Code Category
• Code
• Code Theme Theory
• Code Category
• Code
• Code
 Patterns
• Similarity (things happen the same way)
• Difference (they happen in predictably
different ways
• Frequency (they happen often or seldom)
• Sequence (they happen in a certain order)
• Correspondence (they happen in relation to
other activities or events)
• Causation (one appears to cause another)
 Why are we “counting”?
• “counts” of text provide means for
– Identifying, indexing, organizing
– Snapshot description of data
– First step in analysis
• Considers
– literal words
– Latent meanings
 Coding and reliability
• Inter-coder agreement
- having independent coders decipher content
to make sure that results agree
• Caution when using magnitudes
• 3 dimensionality when describing speaker
– Situates the data in relation to perspective
– (ex. John is a 20 year old 2nd year student at
Harvard)
 Categories come from coded data
• Conceptual and/or descriptive
• Example: INEQUITY
 Guidelines to coding
• Remember your research Q
• Coding should include many categories
initially, and minutely code each.
• Frequently interrupt the coding to write a
note
• Never assume the analytic relevance of any
variable until the data prove it to be relevant
 Practice questions of the week

• What is content analysis, and what does it seek

to accomplish?
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of
content analysis?
• How is content analysis different from discourse
analysis?
• What is exampling and how can a researcher
avoid it?