But sometimes you just have to take things at face value - if you do not have any evidence to support your instincts or suspicions. I know there is often a temptation to wonder 'what did he/she really mean?' 'Was he/she being truthful?' There are methods in which that type of researcher reflexive questioning is appropriate. If your approach is descriptive, or interpretive descriptive, trying to insert some discourse analysis or a psychoanalyze participants via excerpts is just going to muddle up the analysis. Not splitting meaning units helps with coding efficiency. See Chenail (2012) for more about meaning units. Look for meaning units and code them in their entirety.But no one is going to be analyzing who does not know about (or cannot access) the data. When I see people include the questions in the codes I feel as if they are creating codes for someone who does not know about the data. One reason I use line numbers in my documents and in my codes in MS Word is so I can return to see context, if needed. Also do not write parts of interviewer questions as 'in vivo' codes (i.e., do not use a code that looks like this: "harm reduction" in response to "aim of substance abuse education"). If it changes or grows, then edit your sticky note. Keep the purpose in mind (and ideally visible).So taking into account the idea of purpose-driving coding, and one goal of coding I firmly believe in, even with very dense coding, namely data reduction, I offer the following considerations to help guide researchers as they make coding descriptions. On the other hand, I think there is always some minutia that is a stretch to relate - when considered as a free standing excerpt. This - potential to tie in much information eventually - is one argument for pretty dense and open coding, at least in the early stages. However, sometimes the purpose is pretty big: 'how do X described their experience with Y?,' or pretty vague: 'what are the characteristics of x?' (this was one of my prior studies), or emergent, 'what is the process of xyz?' or not all that directed: 'what was it like living during Y?' Arguably just about everything in a transcript - which is just about everything someone said in response to questions about the purpose - could at least tangentially relate, or might relate to something else that is directly relevant, or might begin to describe a relevant experience, etc. (For those people who chop up transcripts with scissors and spread them on the floor, perhaps you need a dangling pennant or flag with your questions/purpose.) I think this is great advice and have certainly repeated it elsewhere in this blog, and dozens of times to students. Ron Chenail, my favorite (overall/generalist) qualitative research expert, suggested writing your research question or purpose on a sticky note and attaching it to your computer monitor - or wherever you will see it while you code. The amount of coding shown in the examples seemed just about right to me - but I wondered why I though so. HyperRESEARCH makes a free trial version available and has some nice coding examples. I also like the transcription software, HyperTRANSCRIBE, and know that at least one of my former students purchased this. I am not quite 1/3 of the way through the class/semester and I realized that I only barely touched on the idea of 'what should be coded?' This question came to me as I was reviewing a tutorial for HyperRESEARCH, a program I used in the past and think is among the particularly good alternatives for student researchers who are considering purchase of a user license for something. One of the things I am particularly enjoying about this is that I am able to focus on the mechanics and style sof coding - by default most QDAS analysis is coding - this is what these programs were mostly set up to do and remains what they are most comfortable doing. This semester I am teaching a qualitative data analysis course with a focus on use of software or QDAS (Qualitative Data Analysis Software).
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