Mar. 1: Coding and Analyzing Interviews
Introduction Assignment
Due Date: March 1st, 9:30am
Read: Transcribing, Analysis, and Writing-Up Interviews
Guided Summary:
- What is the benefit of transcribing interviews yourself?
Besides the financial saving, it intimately acquaints you with the material, gives you the opportunity to assess where the gaps are and you can gauge where and how your interviewing technique was wanting and can be improved (Ezzy, 2002: 70). Another advantage of transcribing yourself is that you can leave out material that is not pertinent and add comments where appropriate about how the interviewee responded to particular questions like ‘she appeared agitated’; ‘she thought this was very funny’; ‘laughed cynically’, etc. You can also describe body language.
- What are the two approaches to analyzing interview data? (pg. 4)
These are the methodological and philosophical approaches
- Which do you prefer? Why? What is the in-between position?
I prefer the Philosophical because it creates an interviewer interviwee interaction
- List and briefly describe each of the stages of analyzing transcripts (5 of them)
Stage 1 – The careful read-through and note-taking: this part is all about making notes about the quality of the interview itself while reading throughly without thinking that this needs coding.
Stage 2 – Notable quotes Stage: this can be merged with stage 1 to save some time but it should include quotes relevant to the themes using imaginary and metaphors that connects.
3 – Coding/finding the themes: it allows to compare multiple interviews to give meaning to each one’s approach to the material with an open mind.it should be reviewed beforehand to get a sense of that it should be done or what is is asking for in the interview.
Stage 4 – Selecting the themes you are going to focus on when writing up the interviews: themes should be selected at this point and the interviewer should be able to include even the difficult subjects or questions with the appropriate approach.
Stage 5 – Interpreting and writing up the interview data, drawing on the themes identified: this part helps to interpret the interview material as well as labelling them. Also, arise with questions to be answered by you before they are brought to the interview to give it a sense of meaning.
- Why is it important to approach the data with an open mind?
Because Strong preconceptions of what the data should be telling you could result in the overlooking or underplaying of important material that undermines your position
- What is an overarching theme?
An overarching theme could be a concept that captures the situation of most interviewee.
- What is a vignette? What does it do for your readers?
A vignette using the words of the interviewee is a powerful way of sharing data. It gives the reader a fuller picture and allows you to give the context and explain their experiences.
Read: Thematic Coding and Analyzing
Guided Summary:
- What is coding?
Coding is how you define what the data you are analyzing are about. It involves identifying and recording one or more passages of text or other data items such as the parts of pictures that, in some sense, exemplify the same theoretical or descriptive idea.
- What is a codebook?
It refers to the list of codes, term used by many other analysts. ‘Book’ suggests something more weighty than just a list, and indeed it is good practice that you should keep more than just a list.
- Why are code definitions important?
Codes form a focus for thinking about the text and its interpretation. The actual coded text is just one aspect of that. For this reason it is important that, as early as you can, you write some notes about each code you develop.
- List the questions on page 5 from Charmaz, 2003
What is going on?
What are people doing?
What is the person saying?
What do these actions and statements take for granted?
How do structure and context serve to support, maintain, impede or change these actions and statements?
(Charmaz, 2003, pp. 94–5)
- What is the difference between description, categorization, and analysis in coding?
The description part there is a detailed description given as lines refers to in the conversation, such as separating out each subjects. In the categorization part the most relevant information is taken apart from the less meaningful but also important just not so straight in the line of interview theme. The last Analysis the categorization part is analyzed up to the point that this analysis determined how much relevance each of the lines has and also checking meaning of the wording in sense that it determines what the speaker ment by saying this particular phrase as well as when there a particular word repeated often.
- Briefly reflect on the example on pages 5-7. Do you agree with the codes they chose? What different or additional codes would you add? How would you do it differently?
Yes, the codes seems right to me I will add more questions about their future plans and in what way the will like to accomplish them. Maybe different try to jog on memories.
- How does the focus of the study influence the way you code the transcript?
- Compare and contrast concept driven and data driven coding?
In many cases research is driven by funding bodies and what you have agreed with the funders that you will do. For example, if the research on those suffering from Alzheimer’s disease was funded by the bodies which provide services to carers then you might focus on the themes ‘Doing for’ and ‘Joint activities’. On the other hand, if you were doing a PhD on the social psychology of couples, you might focus on ‘Core activity’ and ‘Togetherness’.
They both approach the research with some sense of knowledge, data driven is more inclusive because the observer can have the opportunity to participate but then the results may be bias. While concept driven allows to build a code without any initial reference from the data collected
Which do you prefer? The data driven codes because its more inclusive
Add table 4.1 to your webpage You can do this by taking a screen shot or creating a ‘table’ block on your website and copying and pasting the info into the table.
- What are gerunds in coding? How do they help?
Gerunds are words ending in -ing in English, that indicate someone doing something. This emphasis on looking for and using gerunds in coding is something promoted by grounded theorists such as Charmaz (2014).
- Define grounded theory
This approach has been used extensively across a variety of social science disciplines and it lies behind the design of much CAQDAS. Its central focus is on inductively generating novel theoretical ideas or hypotheses from the data as opposed to testing theories specified beforehand.
- List and describe (in your own words) each of the techniques on page 15
Analysis of word, phrase or sentence: the purpose of this one is to find all given or possible meaning to a specific world.
Flip-flop technique: this compares two points of the same situation to find a logic explanations of different ideas
Systematic comparison: this includes “what if: questions to find out if a particular answer given can be recreated depending on possible situations stipulated comparing the different answers given and reaching to a point.
Far out comparisons: this gives an example using fictitious situations that can connect too the idea and leads the interviewWaving the red flag: carefully inquire about the “never and always” wording given during an interview to find out what truly the happened or is happening and suggest an alternative approach
