content analysis

• what is content analysis?

  -it involves assessing how often behaviour occurs by using categories

  -converts qualitative information to quantitative
• what are the aspects of content analysis?

  -it can be used to analyse content of many different things so that trends or patterns in behaviour can be established

  -it is important to be clear about how the categories should be defined and measured

  -once information has been quantified, it can be analysed to see if there are patterns
• what are the strengths of content analysis?

  1. it is useful for turning qualitative information into measurable quantitative data
  2. it is flexible- it can be applied to a range of information sources e.g. tv programmes and books
• what are the weaknesses of content analysis?

  1. the accuracy of the results obtained depends very much on whether the categories are precisely defined
  2. it will be difficult to decide how to classify the behaviour being observed if the categories aren’t defined