Inductive content analysis

1. Inductive content analysis

2. What kind of data would you collect if you had been conducting interviews?

3. Inductive Content Analysis • So, once you have collected your data from the qualitative research you have been doing, what happens next?

4. Inductive Content Analysis • There are many different ways of analysing the data collected from qualitative research methods.

5. Inductive Content Analysis • There are many different ways of analysing the data collected from qualitative research methods. • The one we’ll be looking at is inductive content analysis.

6. Inductive Content Analysis • There are many different ways of analysing the data collected from qualitative research methods. • The one we’ll be looking at is inductive content analysis. • It’s also sometimes called thematic content analysis.

7. Inductive Content Analysis • Inductive content analysis involves allowing themes to emerge from the data • Tell the person next to you what you think this means.

8. Inductive Content Analysis • If a researcher has been conducting interviews, he/she will examine the transcripts and identify raw themes from them. • If, for example a researcher had been trying to find out ‘what it’s like to be an IB student’, what kind of themes do you think might come out of a transcript?

9. Inductive Content Analysis • If more than one participant was interviewed, then researchers will find raw themes from all transcripts before comparing them.

10. Inductive Content Analysis • What is meant by inductive?

11. Inductive Content Analysis • What is meant by inductive? • In general inductive research is theory-generating, whilst deductive research is theory-testing. • Tell the person next to you what you think that means.

12. Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) • Use themes to create theories and draw conclusions • War victims express hatred towards soldiers or relief after war • Willig’s strategy for IPA • Reading and rereading transcripts • Identify emerging themes • Structure emergent themes • Create summary table of themes • Include quotations

13. Evaluation What is good about using content analysis vs just doing a questionnaire or psychometric test? • Individual Differences • Great to study emotions and motivation • Can establish what caused the behaviour • Can study rare behaviours in detail

14. Evaluation Why should we not use content analysis? • Not Scientific (i.e. its hard to statistically prove anything) • Can’t really generalise • Reliability - how one person views the report/data may be different from someone else • Validity - the language is ambiguous and may be misinterpreted.

15. In general, deductive research is theory-testing and inductive research is theory-generating. Often people link deductive research with quantitative experiments or surveys, and inductive research with qualitative interviews or ethnographic work. These links are not hard and fast – for instance, experimental research, designed to test a particular theory through developing a hypothesis and creating an experimental design, may use quantitative or qualitative data or a combination. If your research starts with a theory and is driven by hypotheses that you are testing (e.g. that social class background and social deprivation or privilege are likely to affect educational attainment), it is, broadly speaking, deductive. However much research combines deductive and inductive elements.