sample codebook for qualitative research

SAMPLE CODEBOOK FOR QUALITATIVE RESEARCH SOFTWARE
SAMPLE CODEBOOK FOR QUALITATIVE RESEARCH CODE

However, thinking though exactly how a code should (and shouldn’t) be used can help you work through what other codes might be needed, and how each is conceptualised to link back to answering the research question.Īnother key part of a codebook is the relationship between codes. Now it might seem really daunting to have this level of detail about your coding framework when you start, but it’s usually something that will develop as you progress through coding, especially when taking an iterative cyclical process. Do not use when the person is talking about someone else being angry – use ‘Other people’s feelings’.

Do not include instances of ‘Angry with self’ - use the code ‘Personal Frustrations’. ‘Use for anger, rage, other violent emotions, when felt by the participant, about other people or circumstances. This might be a literal example: ‘I was really angry with them’ or a set of descriptive guidelines: One good way to document how codes should be used is to write coding examples, or use-case rules for each code. Often the meaning of themes and codes will shift as more data is coded, and the structure that a coding framework imposes on a data set fundamentally shapes how it is interpreted and the conclusions drawn from it.

It’s tempting to consider that the coded data itself (ie the quotes/highlights) are the main thing to draw on when writing up findings, but justifying the way it was structured and organised is often just as important. If your codebook contains a history of how codes evolved, guidelines for what to code into them, and detailed descriptions of what they mean, it makes the writing up process a lot easier. A description may also note what type of code it is (for example deductive/emergent, axial, thematic or linguistic), especially if you use more than one coding approach, or have several stages.Ī code book is also useful for communicating with your future-self – the poor person who actually has to write up the data, describe how it was analysed, and possibly debate the coding with supervisors or journal reviewers.

SAMPLE CODEBOOK FOR QUALITATIVE RESEARCH SOFTWARE

In Quirkos this becomes the ‘Description’ you can write for each code (or Quirk), a much longer definition that appears when you hover your mouse over a code or Quirk (although all qualitative software have something similar). The subtleties of how a code is defined can be crucial to correctly interpreting the data, so while it can be convenient to just use a single word to define a theme, you might change that word over time, and have a more detailed explanation for what that code means. A code that sounds simple like Anger may start off being easy to understand, but as you hear from more people you may realise what seems like ‘Anger’ is really better theorised as ‘Emotional Outlets’, ‘Injustice’, ‘Powerlessness’ or even ‘Rage’. As you work through your data, often the exact meaning of a code or theme often evolves, as different people have different perspectives on the same thing. After all, I know what I mean, right? However, there is often a need for self-communication – a note to your self that acts as an aide-mémoire to how a code should be used, through a dynamic process that might take months. It may feel that creating a formal codebook isn’t necessary when there is just one person doing the analysis, as there isn’t an immediate need to communicate what the codes are with someone else. However, it’s just as helpful for grounded theory or emergent analysis, although here it will be constantly updated with new codes and themes as they are identified in the data. Often the concept of codebooks is connected to framework analysis, or analytical techniques where most of the codes are decided in advance. In qualitative coding, the codebook has a similar function: collecting useful meta-information about the codes that is more than the code name itself. The term codebook actually comes from quantitative statistics, where a codebook is used to keep metadata such as variable names, valid ranges, data types etc. A codebook doesn’t include the extracts of data themselves, but a detailed description of the codes, how they should be used, their relationship to each other, what should be included and excluded in each code. Often, the researcher will use hundreds of codes to do this, and the list of codes, themes or topics that are used to analyse the data is called the coding framework, and a codebook describes them. Many people undertaking qualitative analysis will use some form of coding to help explore and categorise their data.

Sample codebook for qualitative research