Content Analysis'

Question 1

What is a content analysis?

Answer 1

It’s a research technique used in psychology to analyse recorded information. It is a quantitative approach and can be conducted on any form of recorded media.

Question 2

Give 5 examples of what content analysis’ can be done on

Answer 2

Newspapers
Diaries
Music
Videos
Tv adverts

Question 3

What are the strengths to content analysis’?

Answer 3

-easily repeated
-can turn qualitative data into quantitative data

Question 4

What are the weaknesses to content analysis’?

Answer 4

They can suffer from researcher bias. It is also reliant on the quality of the material- if it isn’t very realistic (lacks real world validity) then the analysis won’t be very realistic.

Question 5

what are the 5 steps to conducting a content analysis?

Answer 5

1. pick your recorded media
2. choose your categories (4-5)
3. create a tally chart with a column for each category. (mutually exclusive, exhaustive, no ambiguousness)
4. watch the adverts and tick each time that you see one of the categories in an advert.
5. write a report on your findings of the content analysis, including a bar chart or table of the frequencies you found.

Question 6

define test re-test

Answer 6

testing reliability by repeating the content analysis

Question 7

define inter-rater reliability

Answer 7

using another researcher to conduct the same analysis with the same categories / material. If the researchers obtain the same results the study is said to be reliable.

Question 8

what are the 8 possible categories that can be used in a content analysis?

Answer 8

capturing attention
slogans
classical conditioning/association
music
storyline
celebrities, endorsement
links to other media
jingles

Question 9

define thematic analysis

Answer 9

An in-depth report on the main themes in written and recorded information, just like identifying the main themes in a novel.

Question 10

What’s the difference between quantitative and qualitative data?

Answer 10

quantitative - numbers and quantities, easier to analyse
qualitative- words, feelings, opinion + anything rich in detail- harder to analyse

Question 11

What’s the main issue with thematic analysis’?

Answer 11

They are often very subjective as researchers have different judgments- leading to a lot of bias in the final report.

Question 12

what can be done to deal with the subjective bias in thematic analysis’?

Answer 12

researchers can often include a short statement at the start about their own beliefs/ viewpoints, so that the reader can place the report into the context of the researcher.

Question 13

what are the strengths to thematic analysis’?

Answer 13

• lots of detail, keeps data in rich detail format.
• likely to have higher ecological validity- real ideas thoughts and feelings,.

Question 14

what are the weaknesses to thematic analysis’?

Answer 14

• very time consuming
• more likely to be subjective
  -hard to replicate as a researcher may choose different themes to another

Question 15

What is the alternative if qualitative data can not be reported?

Answer 15

The data can be turned into quantitative data and a content analysis can be run.