Research methods - Content analysis

Question 1

define content analysis

Answer 1

an indirect observational method that is used to analyse human behaviour, investigating through studying human artefacts (the things people make). The analysis is often written word (qualitative data), or write-ups of spoken words (transcripts). this is transformed into quantitative data.

Question 2

how is content analysis conducted

Answer 2

1. decide a research question
2. select a sample from all possible data (e.g. diary entries, tweets, children’s books)
3. coding, decides coding units to be recorded based on the research question.
4. tally the number of times the coding units appear
5. data analysis on the quantitative data

Question 3

how can the reliability of a content analysis be assessed

Answer 3

test-retest reliability. Rerun the content analysis on the same sample and compare the 2 sets of data, if they are similar then this shows good test-retest reliability OR
inter-rater reliability. A second rater also performs the content analysis with the same set of data and the same behavioural categories. Compare the 2 sets of data.

Question 4

2 Strengths of content analysis

Answer 4

• the ‘artefacts’ are usually not created for research but are taken from the real world. This means content analysis has high external validity, and findings should be generalisable to other real-world situations.
• As the artefacts come from the real world it is often easy to gather a sample. Other researchers should be able to replicate a content analysis

Question 5

2 weaknesses of content analysis

Answer 5

• as the researcher will often need to interpret subjective text, this ay lead to researcher/observer bias, when researchers tend to interpret the text in a way that supports their pre-existing views.
• The data is created for purposes other than the research as the data wasn’t created under controlled conditions it may lack validity.

Question 6

what makes a thematic analysis different to a content analysis

Answer 6

It turns quantitative data into qualitative data. Also in a thematic analysis researchers start by attempting to identify the deeper meaning of the test by reading it first, and allowing themes to emerge. So themes are not pre-determined by the researcher but come from/emerge from the text.

Question 7

what is an advantage thematic analysis has over content analysis

Answer 7

as theories come after the discovery of themes, it can argued thematic analysis stops the researcher from imposing their own bias on the analysis by only looking for what they want to see.