Content Analysis

• what is it?

  - an observational study where behaviour is observed indirectly in written / verbal material / analysis of the content of something
• why is behaviour observed indirectly?


  because you're not observing people directly, you're observing them through the artefacts they produce
• what are the features of content analysis?

  produce qual data and turn qual into quan

  analyses content systematically using behavioural categories

  indirect observation of artefact - opportunity sampling

  analyses primary and secondary sources

  identifies behavioural categories - decide specific behaviours to be counted
• what are the strengths of content analysis?

  + easy to assess reliability and replicate

  access materials and sources and use coding system to find if it's consistent or not

  + high eco val

  based on real life communications

  findings can be generalised beyond study setting to real life locations

  based on observations of what people actually do
• what are the weaknesses of content analysis?


  _ hard to establish cause and effect

  only describes data that's not conducted under controlled experimental conditions

  low internal validity

  _ researcher bias

  subjective judgement - applying content to categories

  interpret differently

  researcher interpret to confirm hypothesis > low internal validity