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

Background. Qualitative research explores complex phenomena encountered by clinicians, health care providers, policy makers and consumers. Although partial checklists are available, no consolidated reporting framework exists for any type of qualitative design. Objective. To develop a checklist for explicit and comprehensive reporting of qualitative studies (indepth interviews and focus groups). Methods. We performed a comprehensive search in Cochrane and Campbell Protocols, Medline, CINAHL, systematic reviews of qualitative studies, author or reviewer guidelines of major medical journals and reference lists of relevant publications for existing checklists used to assess qualitative studies. Seventy-six items from 22 checklists were compiled into a comprehensive list. All items were grouped into three domains: (i) research team and reflexivity, (ii) study design and (iii) data analysis and reporting. Duplicate items and those that were ambiguous, too broadly defined and impractical to assess were removed. Results. Items most frequently included in the checklists related to sampling method, setting for data collection, method of data collection, respondent validation of findings, method of recording data, description of the derivation of themes and inclusion of supporting quotations. We grouped all items into three domains: (i) research team and reflexivity, (ii) study design and (iii) data analysis and reporting. Conclusions. The criteria included in COREQ, a 32-item checklist, can help researchers to report important aspects of the research team, study methods, context of the study, findings, analysis and interpretations.

Consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research (COREQ): a 32-item checklist for interviews and focus groups

This paper focuses on scoping studies, an approach to reviewing the literature which to date has received little attention in the research methods literature. We distinguish between different types of scoping studies and indicate where these stand in relation to full systematic reviews. We outline a framework for conducting a scoping study based on our recent experiences of reviewing the literature on services for carers for people with mental health problems. Where appropriate, our approach to scoping the field is contrasted with the procedures followed in systematic reviews. We emphasize how including a consultation exercise in this sort of study may enhance the results, making them more useful to policy makers, practitioners and service users. Finally, we consider the advantages and limitations of the approach and suggest that a wider debate is called for about the role of the scoping study in relation to other types of literature reviews.

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Scoping studies: towards a methodological framework

Good qualitative research uses a systematic and rigorous approach that aims to answer questions concerned with what something is like (such as a patient experience), what people think or feel about something that has happened, and it may address why something has happened as it has. Qualitative data often takes the form of words or text and can include images.

Qualitative research covers a very broad range of philosophical underpinnings and methodological approaches. Each has its own particular way of approaching all stages of the research process, including analysis, and has its own terms and techniques, but there are some common threads that run across most of these approaches. This Research Made Simple piece will focus on some of these common threads in the analysis of qualitative research.

So you have collected all your qualitative data – you may have a pile of interview transcripts, field-notes, documents and …

https://ebn.bmj.com/content/ebnurs/15/1/2.full.pdf

Qualitative data analysis

This is the second in a series of three articles 

Contrary to popular perception, qualitative research can produce vast amounts of data. These may include verbatim notes or transcribed recordings of interviews or focus groups, jotted notes and more detailed “fieldnotes” of observational research, a diary or chronological account, and the researcher's reflective notes made during the research. These data are not necessarily small scale: transcribing a typical single interview takes several hours and can generate 20–40 pages of single spaced text. Transcripts and notes are the raw data of the research. They provide a descriptive record of the research, but they cannot provide explanations. The researcher has to make sense of the data by sifting and interpreting them.

#### Summary points

Qualitative research produces large amounts of textual data in the form of transcripts and observational fieldnotes

The systematic and rigorous preparation and analysis of these data is time consuming and labour intensive

Data analysis often takes place alongside data collection to allow questions to be refined and new avenues of inquiry to develop

Textual data are typically explored inductively using content analysis to generate categories and explanations; software packages can help with analysis but should not be viewed as short cuts to rigorous and systematic analysis

High quality analysis of qualitative data depends on the skill, vision, and integrity of the researcher; it should not be left to the novice

In much qualitative research the analytical process begins during data collection as the data already gathered are analysed and shape the ongoing data collection. This sequential analysis1 or interim analysis2 has the advantage of allowing the researcher to go back and refine questions, develop hypotheses, and pursue emerging avenues of inquiry in further depth. Crucially, it also enables the researcher to look for deviant or negative cases; that is, …

https://faculty.washington.edu/jelmore/articles_online/Pope-QualResinHC-Ana.pdf

Analysing qualitative data

The last two decades have seen a notable growth in the use of qualitative methods
for applied social policy research. Qualitative research is now used to explore
and understand a diversity of social and public policy issues, either as an
independent research strategy or in combination with some form of statistical
inquiry. The wider use of qualitative methods has come about for a number of
reasons but is underpinned by the persistent requirement in social policy fields
to understand complex behaviours, needs, systems and cultures.

Qualitative data analysis for applied policy research

Quality in qualitative evaluation : a framework for assessing research evidence

Foreword ix Acknowledgements xi INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER ONE: The Fragmentation of Social Life? 9 CHAPTER TWO: Capturing Personal Communities 32 CHAPTER THREE: The Nature of Friendship 57 CHAPTER FOUR: Patterns of Friend-Making 87 CHAPTER FIVE: Friends and Family: The Case for Suffusion 108 CHAPTER SIX: Personal Communities Today 128 CHAPTER SEVEN: Micro-SocialWorlds in theMaking 156 CHAPTER EIGHT: Hidden Solidarities Revealed 190 APPENDIX: HowWe Carried Out Our Study 213 Notes 241 Index 293

Rethinking Friendship: Hidden Solidarities Today

Starting from a simple model of personal relationships based on degrees of commitment and degrees of choice, the authors explore the relative importance of repertoires (the range of friendship types in which people engage), friendship modes (the way in which people make, retain or lose friends throughout the life course) and patterns of suffusion (the extent to which friends and family play overlapping or specialized roles), and these concepts form the basis of a typology of personal communities. Analysis of ‘suffusion’ between ‘friends’ and ‘family’ showed considerable blurring of boundaries. The authors challenge assumptions about familial and non-familial ties. Empirical findings demonstrate the diversity and significance of contemporary personal communities and rebut the postmodernist thesis that people are isolated, individualized and lacking in strong and enduring personal relationships.

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Liz Spencer

Papers

Qualitative data analysis for applied policy research

Quality in qualitative evaluation : a framework for assessing research evidence

Rethinking Friendship: Hidden Solidarities Today

Personal Communities: Not Simply Families of ‘Fate’ or ‘Choice’:

In Pursuit of Quality