An Introduction to Codes and Coding Chapter Summary Purposes of the Manual What Is a Code? Codifying and Categorizing What Gets Coded? The Mechanics of Coding The Numbers of Codes Manual and CAQDAS Coding Solo and Team Coding Necessary Personal Attributes for Coding On Method Writing Analytic Memos Chapter Summary The Purposes of Analytic Memo-Writing What Is an Analytic Memo? Examples of Analytic Memos Coding and Categorizing Analytic Memos Grounded Theory and Its Coding Canon Analytic Memos on Visual Data First-Cycle Coding Methods Chapter Summary The Coding Cycles Selecting the Appropriate Coding Method(s) Overview of First-Cycle Coding Methods The Coding Methods Profiles Grammatical Methods Elemental Methods Affective Methods Literary and Language Methods Exploratory Methods Forms for Additional First-Cycle Coding Methods Theming the Data Procedural Methods After First-Cycle Coding Chapter Summary Post-Coding Transitions Eclectic Coding Code Mapping and Landscaping Operational Model Diagramming Additional Transition Methods Transitioning to Second-Cycle Coding Methods Second-Cycle Coding Methods Chapter Summary The Goals of Second-Cycle Methods Overview of Second-Cycle Coding Methods Second-Cycle Coding Methods Forms for Additional Second-Cycle Coding Methods After Second-Cycle Coding Chapter Summary Post-Coding and Pre-Writing Transitions Focusing Strategies From Coding to Theorizing Formatting Matters Writing about Coding Ordering and Re-Ordering Assistance from Others Closure Appendix A: A Glossary of Coding Methods Appendix B: A Glossary of Analytic Recommendations Appendix C: Field Note, Interview Transcript and Document Samples for Coding Appendix D: Exercises and Activities for Coding and Qualitative Data Analytic Skill Development References Index

The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers

The global community of qualitative researchers is midway between two extremes, searching for a new middle, moving in several different directions at the same time. Mixed methodologies and calls for scientifically based research, on the one side, renewed calls for social justice inquiry from the critical social science tradition on the other. In the methodological struggles of the 1970s and 1980s, the very existence of qualitative research was at issue. In the new paradigm war, “every overtly social justice-oriented approach to research . . . is threatened with de-legitimization by the government-sanctioned, exclusivist assertion of positivism . . . as the ‘gold standard’ of educational research” (Wright, 2006, pp. 799–800). The evidence-based research movement, with its fixed standards and guidelines for conducting and evaluating qualitative inquiry, sought total domination: one shoe fits all (Cannella & Lincoln, Chapter 5, this volume; Lincoln, 2010). The heart of the matter turns on issues surrounding the politics and ethics of evidence and the value of qualitative work in addressing matters of equity and social justice (Torrance, Chapter 34, this volume). In this introductory chapter, we define the field of qualitative research, then navigate, chart, and review the history of qualitative research in the human disciplines. This will allow us to locate this handbook and its contents within their historical moments. (These historical moments are somewhat artificial; they are socially constructed, quasi-historical, and overlapping conventions. Nevertheless, they permit a “performance” of developing ideas. They also facilitate an increasing sensitivity to and sophistication about the pitfalls and promises of ethnography and qualitative research.) A conceptual framework for reading the qualitative research act as a multicultural, gendered process is presented. We then provide a brief introduction to the chapters, concluding with a brief discussion of qualitative research. We will also discuss the threats to qualitative human-subject research from the methodological conservatism movement, which was noted in our Preface. As indicated there, we use the metaphor of the bridge to structure what follows. This volume provides a bridge between historical moments, politics, the decolonization project, research methods, paradigms, and communities of interpretive scholars.

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The Discipline and Practice of Qualitative Research

Most educators have encountered case studies as part of their preservice preparation and continued professional training; yet, there is often some uncertainty as to what exactly a case study is and in particular what a qualitative case study is. A case study is an in-depth description and analysis of a single bounded system, a unit of one, whether that unit is a teacher, a classroom, a program, or a school district. When the question of interest within the case is one of understanding how people construct the meaning of an event, activity, or phenomenon, it is a qualitative case study. This article defines qualitative case study research, discusses aspects of the design and implantation of a qualitative case study, and concludes with a brief discussion of how to think about generalizing from a single case study.

Qualitative Case Studies

T raditionally, works on research design (most of which focus on quantitative research) have understood " design " in one of two ways. Some take designs to be fixed, standard arrangements of research conditions and methods that have their own coherence and logic, as possible answers to the question, " What research design are you using? " (e.g., Campbell & Stanley, 1967). For example, a randomized, double-blind experiment is one research design; an interrupted time-series design is another. Beyond such broad categories as ethnographies, qualitative interview studies, and case studies (which often overlap), qualitative research lacks any such elaborate typology into which studies can be pigeonholed. In addition, typologies are usually based on a limited number of features of the study, and by themselves do little to clarify the actual functioning and interrelationship of the component parts of a design. Other models present design as a logical progression of stages or tasks, from problem formulation to the generation of conclusions or theory, that are necessary in planning or carrying out a study (e.g., Creswell, 1997; Marshall & Rossman, 1999). Such models usually resemble a flowchart with a clear starting point and goal and a specified order for doing the intermediate tasks. Although some versions of this approach are circular or iterative (see, e.g., Bickman & Rog, Chapter 1, this volume), so that later steps connect back to earlier ones, all such models are linear in the sense that they are made up of one-directional sequences of steps that represent what is seen as the optimal order for conceptualizing or conducting the different components or activities of a study. Neither of these models adequately represents the logic and process of qualitative research. In a qualitative study, " research design should be a reflexive process operating through every stage of a project "

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Designing a qualitative study.

Discussions regarding standards for assessing qualitative research have not sufficiently addressed questions concerning the privatization of this type of analysis. In response to this dilemma, the authors of this article address some of the strategies that they have employed in working with doctoral students and offer suggestions for assessing and publicly disclosing the methodological rigor and analytical defensibility of qualitative research. Specifically, tabular strategies are introduced for use in documenting the relationship between data sources and a study’s research questions, the development of themes and categories, and the triangulation of findings. Examples from three dissertations are provided.

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Qualitative Analysis on Stage: Making the Research Process More Public:

Characteristics and Origins of Qualitative and Ethnographic Research in Education. Considerations on Selecting a Research Design. Selecting and Sampling in Qualitative Research. The Role and Experience of the Researcher. The Role of Theory in the Research Process. Data Collection Strategies. Analysis and Interpretation of Qualitative Data. Personal Computers in Qualitative Research. Evaluating Qualitative Design. References. Author Index. Subject Index.

Judith Preissle

Papers

Ethnography and Qualitative Design in Educational Research