content analysis

• What is a content analysis?

  A technique for analysing qualitative data of various kinds. The qualitative data can be placed into categories and counted (quantitative)
• What is the first stage of a content analysis?

  Data is collected
• What is the second stage of a content analysis?

  The researcher familiarises themselves with the data
• What is the third stage of a content analysis?

  The researcher identifies coding units
• What is the fourth stage of a content analysis?

  A tally is made of the number of times that a coding unit appears
• Why is it a strength that the artefacts in a content analysis are often available for others?

  Content analysis can be easily replicated by others and reliability measured using inter-rater reliability
• What is usually high in a content analysis?

  Ecological validity
• Why do content analyses tend to have high ecological validity?

  Because they are based on observations of what people actually do; real communications that are current and relevant such as recent newspapers or children's books
• What is the problem if the artefacts are limited to a particular culture or group (like recording conversations among Sixth Form schoolgirls)?

  Then the findings won't be generalisable to wider society
• What cannot be established with a content analysis?

  Causality
• Why can't a content analysis establish causality?

  It only describes the data, content analysis cannot extract any deeper meaning or explanation for the data patterns arising