“a childhood behavior disorder characterized by aggressive and destructive activities that cause disruptions in the child's natural environments such as home, school or the neighborhood”

Data Collection & Analysis: Content Analysis

.Liza Meluddin.Nurul

Hazwani .Afinah Abu &

.Seti Aminah

11M1302 11M130411M1305 11M1308

It is a “systematic, replicable technique for compressing many words of text into fewer content categories based on explicit rules of

coding.”—Berelson, 1952

Content Analysis

“A method used to classify selected parts/units of written text into themes,

concepts and meaning” — Holsti, 1969.

Content Analysis

Content Analysis

The purpose of analysing any data is to find meaning and main issues within that data. Carrying out a content

analysis onto data is done by systematically arranging and presenting the information.

Research method used to investigate or explore text selected and narrow it down to key issues, trends and

patterns.

It is a set of procedures for collecting and organising information in a standard, systematic form.

APPLICATIONS of CONTENT ANALYSIS

To reveal the focus of individual, group, institutional or social attention

To determine psychological states of persons or groups

To reflect cultural patterns and beliefs

To describe themes, trends, goals or other characteristics in communication content

To analyze open ended survey data

ProcedureState Your

Research QuestionStep 1

State your Research Question. Knowing what

you want to look for helps you to stay focused.

The choice of content must justify what the

researcher is looking for

Example: “Weight Loss Ad”

My Research Question: to find out what people are looking for in a weight-loss product by listing what

satisfy them

ProcedureSelect Your Sample of Text Material (Data) Step 2

Transform data into written text. E.g.

interview transcripts

The choice of content must justify what the

researcher is looking for

Example: “Weight Loss Ad”

The data: Testimonials from SIX customers (transcribed into text)

ProcedureRead & Review DataStep 3

Before beginning any analysis, it is important to

examine your data.

ProcedureDefine your “Coding Units”

and CategoriesStep 4

Unit of Analysis can be specific words, phrases

or themes that correspond directly to

what you are looking for

Categories: group of words, phrases or themes of similar

meanings

• Lost weight • Younger

• Health • Decrease in size

Lost weight• weight loss• down pounds• lost pounds• no longer fat

Health• blood pressure• healthier• cholesterol

Decrease in size• inches gone• lost inches• lost stomach

ProcedureCoding ProcessStep 5

Highlight the keywords (units) found in your

text/content and place them in relevant

category

Keep a tally sheet as you code your content.

Category Coding Units Tally Total1 lost weight 1 10 weight loss 4 down pounds 3 lost pounds 2 no longer fat 0

Category Coding Units Tally Total2 health 0 8 blood pressure 5 healthier 1 cholesterol 2

Tally Sheet

Category Coding Units Tally Total3 Decrease in size 5 inches gone 1 lost inches 3 lost stomach 1

Category Coding Units Tally Total4 younger 3 3

Tally Sheet

Category Coding Units Tally Total5 No more Hunger 1 4 No craving 2 never hungry 1 not hungry 0

Category Coding Units Tally Total6 Look better 2 27 Without exercise 2 28 Feel confident 3 3

Tally Sheet: Emergent Units

ProcedureInterpret & Report FindingsStep 6

Interpret and analyse your findings.

Investigate main issues and the focuses of the

population

Health

Qualities people look for in a weight-loss product

Types of Content Analysis

1 • QCA vs ECA

2 •Conventional, Directed & Summative

3 •Emergent vs “A Priori”

QUANTITATIVE CONTENT ANALYSIS

(QCA)

VS

ETHNOGRAPHIC CONTENT ANALYSIS

(ECA)

Type A

QCA

A way of obtaining data to measure the

frequency and variety of messages.

Determining the objective content of

written and electronic documents.

Verifying hypothesized relationshipsUnits of space are

countable and measurable

Category

construction

Sampling

Data collecti

on

Data analysi

sInterpretation

METHODS IN QUANTITATIVE CONTENT ANALYSIS (QCA)

To document and understand the

communication of meaning

ECA

To verify theoretical relationships

The reflexive and highly interactive nature of the investigator, concepts, data collection and analysis

Provides good descriptive

information.

Constant discovery

Constant comparison of relevant situations, settings, styles, images, meaning and nuances

Collect numerical and narrative data.

Check, supplement and supplant prior theoretical claims ( to obtain categorical and unique data for every case studied in order to develop analytical construct for several investigation)

Data are coded conceptually

METHODS IN ETHNOGRAPHIC CONTENT ANALYSIS (ECA)

QCA ECA

Research Goal Verification Discovery ; Verification

Reflexive Research design Seldom Always

Emphasis Reliability Validity

Progression from Data Collection, Analysis, Interpretation

Serial Reflexive; Circular

Primary Researcher Involvement Data Analysis and interpretation

All Phases

Sample Random or Stratified Purposive and Theoretical

Pre-Structured Categories All Some

Training Required to Collect Data Little Substantial

Type of Data Numbers Numbers; Narrative

Data Entry Points Once Multiple

Narrative Description and Comments Seldom Always

Concepts Emerge During Research Seldom Always

Data Analysis Statistical Textual; Statistical

Data Presentation Tables Tables and Text

`Conventional Content Analysis

- generally used with a study design to describe a phenomenon

- appropriate when existing theory or research literature on a phenomenon is limited

ADVANTAGES

- gaining direct information from study participants without imposing preconceived categories or theoretical perspectives

DISADVANTAGES

- failing to develop a complete understanding of the context, thus failing to identify key categories.

- can easily be confused with other qualitative methods such as grounded theory method (GTM) or

phenomenology.

`Directed Content Analysis

- Researcher uses existing theory or prior research (can help focus the research question)

- To validate or extend conceptually a theoretical framework or theory.

- to determine the initial coding scheme or relationships between codes

`Summative Content Analysis

- Identifying and quantifying certain words or content in text with the purpose of understanding the contextual

use of words of content

- Data analysis begins with searches for occurrences of the identified words by hand or by computer

- Word frequency counts for each identified term are calculated, with source or speaker also identified

ADVANTAGES

- unobtrusive and nonreactive way to study the phenomenon of interest

- provides basic insights into how words are actually used.

Type of Content Analysis

Study Starts With

Timing of Defining Code or Keywords

Source of Code or Keywords

Conventional content analysis

Observation Codes are defined during data analysis

Codes are derived form data

Directed content analysis

Theory Codes are defined before

and during data analysis

Codes are derived from theory or

relevant research findings

Summative content analysis

Keywords Keywords are identified before and during data

analysis

Keywords are derived from interest of

researchers or review of literature

Major Coding Differences Among Three Approaches to Content Analysis

Emergent vs. a priori

A priori EmergentCategories are

established prior to the analysis based upon some theory.

Categories are established

following some preliminary

examination of the data.

A priori EmergentWeber (1990) Haney, Russell, Gulek, &

Fierros (1998)

1. Professional colleagues agree on the categories.

1. Two people independently review material and come up with a set of features, forming a checklist.

2. Then the coding is applied to the data.

2. The researchers compare notes and reconcile any differences that show up on their initial checklist.

3. Revisions are made as necessary, the categories are tightened up to the point that maximizes mutual exclusivity and exhaustiveness.

3. The researchers use a consolidated checklist to independently apply coding.

4. The researchers check the reliability of the coding (a 95% agreement is suggested; .8 for Cohen’s kappa). If the level of reliability is not acceptable, then the researchers repeat the previous steps. Once the reliability has been established, the coding is applied on a large-scale basis.

5. The final stage is a periodic quality control check.

Conceptual and relational analysis

Conceptual RelationalEstablishing the existence and frequency of concepts

in a text.

Builds on conceptual analysis by examining the

relationships among concepts in a text.

Begins with identifying research questions and choosing a sample or

samples.

First, decide which concept types will be

explored in the analysis.

Once chosen, the text must be coded into manageable content categories.

Too many categories may obscure results and too few can lead to unreliable and potentially invalid conclusions.

The process of coding is basically one of selective reduction, which is the central idea in content analysis.

Therefore, it is important to allow the context and necessities of the research to guide the coding procedures.

By breaking down the contents of materials into meaningful and pertinent units of information, certain characteristics of message may be analyzed and interpreted.

Researchers can devise their own procedures according to the nature of their project.

TYPES OF SOFTWARE PURPOSES

1) Key Word In Context (KWIC) To test for the consistency of usage of words.

2) NUD*IST

3) HyperRESEARCH

To pull up the sentence in which that word was used so that researcher can see the word in some context and to strengthen the validity of the inferences that are being made from the data.

4) The revised General Inquirer To incorporate artificial intelligence systems that can differentiate between the same word used with two different meanings based on context.

5) Nvivo

6) ATLAS

To assist researchers in organising, managing and coding qualitative data in a more efficient manner.

COMPUTER SOFTWARE FOR CONTENT ANALYSIS

Articles

Purpose Examined the content of Seventeen magazine in the years 1945‚ 1955‚ 1965‚ 1975‚ 1985‚ and 1995 to determine if the articles that are presented have changed in response to the feminist movement from the 1940s to the present day.

Data CollectionSample:

Instrument:

Content analysis:

Seventeen magazine in the years 1945‚ 1955‚ 1965‚ 1975‚ 1985‚ and 1995.

Text from magazines.

Articles were coded into one of the six categories: Appearance, male-female relations, home, self-development, career development/ Political world issues.

Data Analysis Refer to table 1

Article 1: A Feminist Analysis of Seventeen Magazine:Content Analysis from 1945 to 1995 (Schlenker‚ Caron & Halteman)

Purpose To examine both recent and earlier crime and delinquency in order to investigate changes in the degree of androcentrism in criminology by comparing the proportion of journal articles that included both males and females in the sample vs. the proportion ofarticles that only sampled one sex.

Data Collection Sample: Three different categories (a) only males were sampled (b) only females were sampled (c) both males and females were sampled

Instrument: Article s from four major criminology journals: (a) Criminology (b) The British Journal of Criminology (c) The Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency (d) The Journal of Criminal law and Criminology Content Analysis: Coding of: delinquency‚ delinquent(s)‚ crime(s)‚ criminality or criminal(s) in the title of the article

Data Analysis Refer to Table

Article 2: Still Just the Study of Men and Crime? A Content Analysis by: Hannon & Dufour

Purpose Roles, Attributes and Occupations of main characters in Women's Magazine Fiction

Data collection

Sample: seven national women's magazines (published in the 1990's):

a) 25 stories with female main characters (magazine between 1990 and 1995)

b) b) 125 stories : some variables were used to determine characteristics and roles of the main characters such as age, residence, housing and etc.

Instrument:a) Each story read by two codersb) Telephone interviews

Content Analysis:Coding interms of characteristics and roles of the main characters :Looks, Marital Status, Age, Housing, Residence, Children, Economic status, Eucation, Occupation, Problem, Goal, Race, Nationaltiy and Dependence.

Data Analysis Refer to Table

Article 3: Women's Magazine Fiction: A Content Analysis of the Roles, Attributes, & Occupations of Main Characters Peirce

Purpose 1) To provide an overview of concepts of importance related to qualitative content analysis in nursing research;

2) To illustrate the use of concepts related to the research procedure;

3) To address measures to achieve trustworthiness.

Data CollectionSample:

Instrument:

Content analysis:

Twenty adults with Type 1-diabetes, aged 25–59 years.

Interview texts

Articles were coded into seven content areas: -Experiences related to the onset of the disease;- management of the disease in daily living; - experiences related to hypoglycaemia; - experiences related to hyperglycaemia;- self-monitoring of blood glucose;- ideas about complications and the future.

Data Analysis Refer to table

Article 4: Qualitative C.A in nursing research: concepts, procedures and measures to achieve trustworthiness (Graneheim&Lundman)

• Quantify large qualitative information into systematic categories.

• Facilitate unobtrusive measurement.• Cope with large volumes of source

material.• Help analysts learn more about issues of

interest.

Strengths

• Add qualitative richness to otherwise quantitative data.

• Validate evidence from other sources.

• Apply to virtually any project.

• Can allow for both quantitative and qualitative operations.

• Can provides valuable historical/cultural insights over time through analysis of texts.

• Allows closeness to text which can alternate between specific categories and relationship.

• Can be costly and time-consuming.• Create reliability and validity problems.• Tends to be used simply as an analysis of word

count.• Can be difficult to automate or computerize.• Coding: human coding is inconsistent and prone to

inconsistency.• Vulnerable to bias, there is no manual or set

guidelines available on how to evaluate the results.

Weaknesses

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