Content Analysis Flashcards
What is content analysis?
-Method used to analyse qualitative data by turning it into quantitative data
-Quantifies qualitative data through the use of coding, although the outcome is usually written and then turned into quantitative data.
How did Waynforth and Dunbar conduct content analysis?
-Analysing lonely heart adverts in newspapers to see if men and women were looking for different things in relationships
They looked at 881 lonely heart adverts
They found that men aimed their adverts at younger women and tended to cite their resources as being more important than their attractiveness
Women aimed their adverts at older males and mentioned their attractiveness more than their resources
The researchers codified the above themes and gave them numerical values so that the qualitative responses were transformed into quantitative data
How to conduct content analysis?
1) Researcher chooses research question
2)Select sample of pre-exisiting qualitative research (some of which they may have conducted; some of which will have been conducted by other researchers) e.g. interview transcripts, diaries, video recordings, images
3)Researcher will decide on the coding of the categories/coding units.
4)Researcher works through the data creating a tally which shows the categories/codes that are most common in the qualitative data
How do you test for reliability?
-Test-retest reliability
-Inter-rater reliability
What is test-retest reliability?
-Run the content analysis again on the same sample and compare the results; if they are similar than this shows good test-retest reliability.
What is inter-rater reliability?
-A second rater conducts the content analysis with the same coding categories and data and compares them; if the results are similar than this shows good inter rater reliability.
What are strengths of content analysis?
-Reliability is established as a content analysis is easily replicable
-It allows statistical analysis to be conducted
-Its not overly time consuming compared to thematic analysis of qualitative data.
-It complements other research methods and can be used verify results from other research.
What are limitations of content analysis?
-Researcher bias can happen as the researcher has to interpret the data
-May lack validity due to extraneous variables e.g dairy entries tend to highly subjective
-Data is purely descriptive and so does not have explanatory power
-Lacks causality as the data was not collected under controlled conditions.
-The results can often be flawed due to the over representation of certain events and using material that is already available. E.g. Negative events usually have a lot more coverage than positive and so this could skew the data to given an invalid representation of behaviour
What is thematic analysis?
-Method used to analyse qualitative data
-Allows researchers to identify, analyse and report common/key themes from a set of data
How to conduct a thematic analysis?
1)The researcher familiarising themselves with the data by reading it over and over again
2)Themes within the data emerge i.e. patterns, repeated or common ideas or concepts
3)The researcher reviews these themes and patterns to see if they can explain behaviour and answer the research question
4)The researcher then categorises and defines each theme
5)The researcher writes up the analysis into their formal report
What is inductive method?
-Themes emerge from the data, there is no hypothesis-testing involved.
What are the strengths of thematic analysis?
-Provides researcher with flexibility in the way that the approach the data
-Uses a subjective approach so that the researcher can apply a range of theories to it.
-Thematic analysis allows the research to explore the data without any preconceptions which can generate real themes and patterns which increases validity.
What are the limitations of thematic analysis?
-Researcher bias can happen as the researcher has to interpret the data
-It may lack validity as the data has not been collected under controlled conditions
-Extremely time consuming to undertake
-Thematic analysis researchers may find it difficult knowing what data to focus on.
