qualitative methods - content analysis Flashcards
what does content analysis do
it is a technique which allows a researcher to take qualitative data and transform it into qualitative data, can be used for many formats like interview transcripts film etc
what are coding units
coding units can be number of positive or negative words etc
why is content analysis useful for unethical research
can use any data released into the public domain like newspaper articles, so explicit consent not required. sensitive topics like domestic violence is also benefitted
what is the process of content analysis
- data is collected
- researcher reads through or examines data, making themselves familiar with it
- researcher identifies coding units
- the data is analysed by applying coding units
- tally made of how many times coding unit appears
what does coding involve
researcher develops categories for data to be classified to allow for quantitative analysis
advantage - reliable
reliable way to analyse quantitative data as the coding units are not open to interpretation so applied in the same way over time with different researchers. therefore - it is a reliable method as the content analysis can be done by multiple researchers
also can be replicated
advantage - validity
has high ecological validity - analysis and therefore conclusions are based on observations and reports of real life behaviour with written and visual communications. therefore findings have external validity
disadvantage - subjective
findings open to subjectivity - eg researcher may interpret some things said in an interview in a different manner from how intended due to own conceptions and biases.
cultural differences may influence or produce inconsistent intepretations of behaviour coding.
therefore this could impact validity of findings as intepretation subject to bias
disadvantage - causality
merely describes data so cant establish causality
