1. Exploring Texts in a Systematic Way Content Coding

2. Example: John Gottman University of Washington 3000 couples Specific Affect (SPAFF) coding 1=disgust; 2=anger; 3=contempt; 4=defensiveness; 5=whining; 6=stonewalling; 7=neutral; 8=criticism…. Each second Will they be married in 15 years? 1 hr= 95% accuracy 15 minutes = 90% accuracy 3 minutes = 85% accuracy 4 major signifiers: 3, 4, 6, 8 1 with overwhelming predictive ability?

3. Defining Content Analysis “-any technique for making inferences by objectively and systematically identifying specified characteristics of messages." Political scientist Ole Holsti (1969)

4. Implications of definition Text will be summarized in a quantitative fashion Will rely on the scientific method Focus on hypothesis testing Attention to objectivity and rigor of method A priori design of coding categories Concern for reliability Concern for validity Focus on generalizability beyond the case

5. When to use?

6. Participants unable to report Limited agreement on conversation Historical texts Unobtrusive In-hybrid with other methods Interested in frequencies with which certain messages are present Interested in interactive structure and sequential structure of messages

7. What’s a text?

8. Public or Private Mediated or F2F Scripted or spontaneous Linguistic or nonverbal

9. Seven steps to content analyzing

10. 7 steps to content analyzing #1. Determine universe and select sample # 2. Determine unit of analysis Physical Temporal Turn taking Grammatical Themes An example: Wendy Levinson 

11. Wendy Levinson: Unit Typical 15 minute doctor’s visit Doctors who were NOT sued Doctors who were sued Ave time with patient18.3 minutes15 minutes Use of orienting comments (e.g. “1 st I’ll examine you, then I’m going to ask you some questions.”) LikelyLess likely Active listeningMore likelyLess likely LaughYesNo Amount of medical infoSame Quality of medical info (as evaluated by a team of doctor’s outside of the study group) Same Just for fun: Nalini Ambady = 40 second clips with no words: regular folks uncannily accurate at deducing who got sued.

12. Back to 7 steps to content analyzing #3 Create a code book (see Moodle) #4 Create a code sheet (see Moodle) #5 Train for reliability Intercoder reliability Intercoder drift #6 Code the sample #7 Analyze the results

13. Questions?