lesson 1 - content analysis and coding (thematic analysis)

Question 1

what is a pilot test

Answer 1

small scale experiment carries out before the main experiment in order to check for any issues or problems that may have occurred so that these can now be avoided or fixed

Question 2

what is content analysis and coding

Answer 2

systematic research technique for analysing data such as transcripts for interviews, documents or texts. the data might be too large to analyse initially so the researcher creates a coding system of pre determined categories that can be applied to the content.
A pilot study is often used to test the coding system/categories to ensure they don’t overlap but are separate

Question 3

give an example of coding

Answer 3

could take the form of counting the number of times a word/phrase/behaviour appears in a source eg how many times does the person sleep talk in a night. this would generate quanitative data for the researcher to analyse however it can also generate qualitative data

Question 4

what is a theme

Answer 4

refers to an idea that reoccurs from the interviews and they tend to be more decriptive than using coding.
If the researcher is happy that the themes identifies cover most aspects of the data that has been collected they may want to collect a new set of data ab sleep eating to compare the new themes and categories that have been identified. This therefore explains the idea of thematic analysis. This will increase the validity if the content analysis overall

Question 5

advantages of content analysis

Answer 5

• produce reliable data. if the content analysis was to be repeated in the future, similar/consistent results would be obtained
• produced quantitative data which allows for trends and patterns in data to be identified
• less time consuming that other research methods in terms of collecting data eg interviews

Question 6

disadvantages of content analysis

Answer 6

• content analysis isn’t very scientific or objective. it can be quite subjective based on the themes/categories that the psychologist uses
• content analysis can be invalid as we are not sure if the themes/categories are rlly measuring the effect of the IV on the DV
• content analysis date collection needs to be contextualised eg sleep behaviour measured in a sleep lab is a different context to sleeping at home

Question 7

what are the stages of content analysis

Answer 7

1. sampling (decide what type of sampling)
2. recording data (how will it be recorded)
3. analyse/categorise the data eg either quantitative or qualitative
4. Tally up the amounts