Analysing Qualitative Data

Content Analysis & Coding 

Content analysis is a method used to analyse qualitative data and is often used when analysing data in case studies. In its most common form it is a technique that allows a researcher to take qualitative data and convert it into quantitative data (numerical data).

The technique can be used for data in many different formats, for example interview transcripts, film, audio recordings, diary entries, emails etc.

Stages of Content Analysis:

  • Read, or watch the data a number of times
  • Identify appropriate categories
  • Tally the amount of times each category occurs within the data

Example: How content analysis is carried out

One example is if a researcher wanted to analyse data from an observational study where 100 cars were fitted with video cameras to record the driver’s behaviour. In order to analyse the videos using content analysis, the following steps would be made:

  1. The psychologist would begin by watching some of the film clips of driver behaviour.
  2. This would enable the psychologist to identify potential categories which emerged from the data. These categories would tend to be behaviours that appeared to happen regularly throughout the film. Some examples of categories / themes from this video may include: passenger distractions, gadget distractions, etc. 
  3. The psychologists would then have watch the films again and count the number of examples which fell into each category to provide quantitative data. This is called Coding because it involves categorising large amounts of information into meaningful chunks/codes

Other examples of coding include:

  • counting how many times particular words are used in children’s adverts aimed at boys compared to girls e.g. words like adventurous, caring or kind
  • number of positive or negative words used by a mother to describe her child’s behaviour
  • number of swear words in a film.

Evaluating Content Analysis:

Strengths:

  • Once the categories/codes have been decided, it is a reliable way to analyse data, as there is clear criteria that is followed for each code, making it more consistent. When there are simple codes, a computer can be used to pick them out, which increases the reliability even further.
  • Converting the qualitative data into quantitative means that it can be easy to present data and make comparisons of the categories/codes. It is also time efficient if carried out by a computer.
  • Offers a method to analyse a variety of forms of data including newspapers, online interviews, adverts and self-report methods so that insights can be provided on data that is not collected by the researchers themselves.

Weaknesses:

  • Converting qualitative data into quantitative data can strip away the detail. It can also make it difficult to understand the data as a whole. This could lead to inaccurate conclusions.
  • The identification of suitable categories and codes is subjective and decided by the researcher alone, meaning that conclusions lack any scrutiny or objectivity.

Try it yourself!

If you want to, you guys could have a go at content analysis yourself. Please see below a video of Richard Kuklinski. He was a hit man and he has claimed to have killed over 200 people. In a usual content analysis you would watch the video over and over again and pick out commonalities in order do develop codes and themes, but I’ve watched this so many times that I will give them to you.

In terms of coding as part of content analysis, I want you to tally on a piece of paper every time he refers to basic physical and materialistic things such as sex, food, clothes, money, possessions. I have chosen this code because psychopaths tend to place a lot of importance on basic needs compared to emotional needs.

The second code, tally every time he smirks, laughs or smiles when he is talking about extreme things, things that your usual person may not find very funny. I have chosen this code as it is a sign of a lack of remorse.

I really recommend that you have a go at this. It’s a very interesting documentary and highlights the contributions of nature and nurture towards the end.