Newsgroups: bit.listserv.qualrs-l
Date:         Sun, 10 Jan 1993 15:29:02 PST
From:         Brigitte Jordan <gjordan@PARC.XEROX.COM>
Subject:      Re: Coding in qualitative analysis
Comments: To: Qualitative Research for the Human Sciences
          <QUALRS-L@uga.cc.uga.edu>

Hi, Markku:

I think this is a very interesting controversy, or rather a set of
predicaments that we are all caught up in. It seems to me that
commenting/annotating and coding are not mutually exclusive kinds of
operations but rather the issue is how much weight we want/need to give to
each of these operations. Commenters may never get to the coding part of
the operation, often because that piece doesn't really add anything to what
they know already. It seems to me coding makes sense only when (throught
the process of analysis through commentary - or I would say through
conversation) we have come to a very definite view of the phenomenon which
then allows identifying particular variables and investigating their
relationship to each other. Actually, with the complex kinds of situations
that we are mostly interested in, we rarely get to that point. Another
reason why one might jump into coding comes from externally imposed
discourse requirements. If the view of what's interesting in a particular
situation is not developed from the inside out (through commenting and
continuous conversation with the video/audio/written text) but rather, it
is already known what aspects are of interests (if somebody for example
wants to find out about teacher stress as operationalized), then you can
get to the coding part really fast. You know what your categories are and
there is no sense in developing unwanted alternatives.

Please include me in the list of people interested in this conversation.
I'd love to hear how it goes.

Gitti



>Dear QUALRS -folks,
>
>I am writing my thesis on computer-assisted qualitative
>analysis. One of the methodological/technical problems
>I've come across with is the question of coding. A while
>ago I asked through this list references to textbooks
>dealing explicitly with different coding procedures.
>(Thanks to all who responded!)
>
>My question to you is: What alternatives to coding you
>see in qualitative analysis?
>
>The bulk of the software I know about is based on some
>kind of coding. What I fear is that with the diffusion
>of these programs we will forget the fact that not all
>qualitative researchers use coding in their work. This
>doesn't necessarily mean that computers would be responsible
>for the (possible) change in researchers' analysing habits.
>On the contrary, the first "code and retrieve" -programs
>were developed to imitate the manual "notecard-box" way of
>coding the data.
>
>If you think of coding as a way of classifying data,
>it is  hardly avoidable (all our thinking is based on
>classifications). But classifying in this broad sense
>is a far cry from classifying texts for instance by
>attaching strings like "teacher stress" to certain lines
>of texts.
>
>I have found at least the following alternatives and
>I would be very happy if you could add to the list:
>
>1. You give a damn about making your analysis explicit.
>This is what Tesch (Qualitative Research: Analysis types
>& software tools) calls "impressionistic analysis".
>This means that the researcher first reads people's
>stories and then writes his own story.
>
>2. In the conference on computer-assisted qualitative
>analysis in Bremen Thomas Muhr (the developer of
>ATLAS/ti) suggested "annotating" as an alternative way
>of working with the text.
>
>I imagine that for instance the humanists analysing
>classical texts don't work by explicitly coding the
>texts but by reading and commenting them. Then other
>researchers comment these comments etc. Somebody
>has even sair that the whole western philosophy is basically
>about commenting (not coding!!!) the writings of Plato.
>These comments results in a large network of texts
>connected with different kinds of "links". (The father
>of hypertext, Ted Nelson dreams about combining all
>the texts in the world to one large computer-accessible
>hypertext system).
>
>Commenting and coding are not contradictory as we can
>see for instance in the way ATLAS/ti and some other
>hyper-text based programs work: Before creating a link
>the user has at least mark (code?) the texts he wants
>to connect.
>
>3. In Bremen conference "objective hermeneutics"
>(Objektiv Hermeneutik), was mentioned as an alternative.
>It is totally unknown to me - I imagine it is well known
>in Germany. Could somebody give me a brief overview of it?
>
>Please write directly to me not to clutter the list. I'll
>summarize the  responses if somebody else is interested.
>
>
>Best wishes,
>
>Markku Lonkila
>Researcher
>University of Helsinki
>internet: lonkila@cc.helsinki.fi
>bitnet: lonkila@finuh

Gitti

[Brigitte Jordan, Xerox PARC and IRL; please send all messages both to:
gjordan@parc.xerox.com and brigitte_jordan@irl.com]
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU