Research Methods: Level 6 Final Year Project Toolkit

The story so far... Developing research questions Critical thinking and literature reviews Research design Data collection methods Resourcing Now... dealing with collected qualitative data – different traditions The Research Toolkit

Coding in qualitative research: bringing order to the information collected, extracting meaning from content A number of different traditions: content analysis and discourse analysis Process employed depends on a number of issues such as: the questions that need answering what the analysis is aimed at achieving resources and skills available audience Making information usable

Content analysis is an approach to analysis of documents and text (communication) that tries to quantify their content by using categories applied in a systematic way. Example: interest shown by mass media in homelessness Questions: proportion of news devoted to reporting homelessness, frequency of news media reporting by different media types? Result: quantitative look at the issue of homelessness reported in the media. Content analysis

Discourse analysis is about examining language focusing on any aspect of linguistic behaviour Example: interest shown by mass media in homelessness Questions: how are were the homeless represented, who was included in the stories, how were images and words used in the portrayal of people reported as homeless? Result: a more qualitative look at the issue of homelessness reported in the media. Discourse analysis

Spectrum of discourse analysis from semiotics to narrative analysis Semiotics: the study of signs – physical things that carry meaning, identifying relationships within and between signs Studying advertising images – how images of men and women (as an example) take on deeper meaning than just what is on the surface. Deconstruction: identification of tensions within texts over the meaning of key terms. Narrative analysis: examining time and change within text Discourse analysis

Critical discourse analysis: focuses particularly on the relationship between power and discourse (language) Aims to challenge social orders and/or practices that are readily accepted but which, in fact, represent only one way of looking at the world – it is just that this particular way has become accepted as the only way Discourse analysis

Conversation analysis is another way of examining and analysing language. It is the detailed analysis of recorded and transcribed naturally occurring talk between at least two people Aims to uncover the underlying structures of what is being said – length of pauses, tones of voice, interruptions and so on. Based on very small units of conversation rather than large amounts of material. Conversation analysis

Two ends of the spectrum Both have strengths and weaknesses Content analysis: can identify content in terms of belonging to a category or not (i.e. Representing a story on homelessness or not) Can use this categorisation to then count Quantifying qualitative research or an essential part to identifying patterns within data? Content and discourse analysis

Coding – applying codes (or tags) to chunks of text to enable text to be examined for links, similarities and differences Types of coding: m anifest : recurring terms latent : terms/ themes occurring beneath the surface In vivo : terms in the language of those being interviewed/observed or the writers of the texts being examined. Sociological : themes drawn from the language of the researcher’s theoretical background Doing content analysis

Types of coding: deductive: producing a list of categories prior to collection of data inductive: generation of codes after the collection and initial reading of data summary: first-level codes – focus on general characteristics pattern: highlighting patterns within the data Doing content analysis

Types of coding: axial: codes that highlight what the researcher perceive at the core issues or themes systematic: process of identifying all the emerging themes that can be found individual or group: each research member initially reading data, developing themes & discussing those with other research members. Doing content analysis

Reasons for using secondary analysis of qualitative data are similar to quantitative secondary data analysis Depends of the nature of the research and what value it adds Some difficulties with reusing qualitative data: ethical – reusing data that was promised as confidential ethical – revealing identities lack of understanding of the social context in which the research was undertaken However, secondary analysis of qualitative data does offer real opportunities. Using Secondary Data

Secondary data available from the Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS) Qualidata websiteQualidata Provides access and support for a range of social science qualitative datasets

Bryman, A. (2008) Social Research Methods. 3 rd Ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. David, M. and Sutton, C. (2011) Social Research : An Introduction. 2nd ed. London: Sage. ESDS Qualidata. Online: available from

This resource was created by the University of Plymouth, Learning from WOeRk project. This project is funded by HEFCE as part of the HEA/JISC OER release programme.Learning from WOeRk This resource is licensed under the terms of the Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales license ( The resource, where specified below, contains other 3 rd party materials under their own licenses. The licenses and attributions are outlined below: 1.The name of the University of Plymouth and its logos are unregistered trade marks of the University. The University reserves all rights to these items beyond their inclusion in these CC resources. 2.The JISC logo, the and the logo of the Higher Education Academy are licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution -non-commercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK England & Wales license. All reproductions must comply with the terms of that license. Author Laura Lake InstituteUniversity of Plymouth Title Final Year Research Project Toolkit Description Qualitative thematic coding – different traditions Date Created July 2011 Educational Level Undergraduate (Level 6) Keywords Discourse and content analysis, semiotics, deconstruction, narrative, critical discourse analysis, conversation analysis, coding: manifest; latent; deductive; inductive; axial; systematic. Creative Commons License UKOER, LFWOER, CPD, Learning from WOeRK, UOPCPDRM, Continuous professional development, Quantitative, Qualitative, HEA, JISC, HEFCE Back page originally developed by the OER phase 1 C-Change project ©University of Plymouth, 2010, some rights reserved