Content Analysis And Thematic Analysis Flashcards
What is content analysis?
Content analysis is a type of observational technique which involves studying people indirectly through qualitive data. A range of different formats for qualitive data can be used from audio recordings, written responses and questionnaires etc.
Content analysis helps to classify responses in a systematic way helping you to draw conclusions.
When using content analysis it is important to have your research questions prepared so you know what your content analysis will focus on.
They must be familiar with the data before the analysis so they know their coding system is suitable for the task.
When is content analysis useful?
Content analysis is useful when conducting research that could be considered unethical, any data that is already in the public domain, such as newspapers, can be analysed without the need of explicit consent. Material that is of a sensitive nature can be written down, for example is a domestic abuse case they can write down what happened of them and then that report can be analysed. This allows for high quality data to be collected in difficult circumstances.
What is coding?
Coding is an important part of coding analysis in which categories for the data to be classified in are made. Qualitative data can be extensive so categories allow for conclusions to be more easily made. They also provide a framework to convert the data into quantitative data.
What are the 7 steps of coding?
1- select the data being examined ie a newspaper article about refuges.
2-read the text highlighting and annotating important points
3-using the annotations the researcher will catagorise the excerpts bey judging its contents.
4-This will be repeated for all of the data in the study
5-Examine the categories that have emerged and see if they need refining, merged or subdividing. The categories must also be operationalised
6- with the behavioural categories you tally each time a behavior occurs in the data.
7- the qualitative data is then converted into quantitative data which can be further analysed.
What is thematic analysis ?
Thematic analysis is a technique that helps identify the themes present in qualitative data, a theme is an idea or notion that can be explicit ( a statement) or implicit (a metaphor implying the same meaning). The themes are not observationalised and so thematic analysis does not produce quantitative data but will produce more refined qualitative data.
What are the 6 steps of thematic analysis?
1 - carry out steps 1-3 of a content analysis
2- The researcher must decide if any of the catagories can be linked to create themes, ie fighting and murder can be combined for the theme of violence.
3-The themes can then be used to identify all aspects of the data that fit a certain theme ie a positive experience can have a PE written next to it. this allows you to quickly identify excerpts containing certain themes.
4-the themes will be critically reviewed to decide how relevant they are to the study.
5- This will be done for every piece of data in the study
6- Qualitative comparisons are drawn between major and minor themes of the analysis.
Evaluation of content analysis and thematic analysis
+) Both content and thematic analysis have high ecological validity, much of the analysis in these research methods base their conclusions of real life behavior and written and visual communications. For example analysis can happen on a book you’ve read or a TV program you’ve watched, Also since records of those remain you can replicate the thematic/content analysis to see if results are consistent and so reliable.
- )Content analysis can lead to subjective findings as people can interpret different thins in ways different from how they were intended due to their own circumstances and biases.
- ) Cultural differences can also lead to inconsistent interpretations 0f behavior since language may be translated and therefore interpreted differently. This reduces the validity of findings as the study may not be measuring what it intended to do with accuracy.
