Learning Resources

Note: To access this week’s required library resources, please click on the link to the Course Readings List, found in the Course Materials section of your Syllabus.

Required Readings

Saldaña, J. (2016). The coding manual for qualitative researchers (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

• Chapter 1, “An Introduction to Codes and Coding” (pp. 1–42)
• Chapter 2, “Writing Analytic Memos About Narrative and Visual Data” (pp. 43–65)

Ravitch, S. M., & Carl, N. M. (2016). Qualitative research: Bridging the conceptual, theoretical, and methodological. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

• Chapter 7, “An Integrative Approach to Data Analysis” (pp. 215–236)
• Chapter 8, “Methods and Processes of Data Analysis” (pp. 237–270)

Rubin, H. J., & Rubin, I. S. (2012). Qualitative interviewing: The art of hearing data (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

• Chapter 12, “Data Analysis in the Responsive Interviewing Model” (pp. 189–211)

The following articles are examples of literature reviews on the aspects of social change. Choose one of the articles for this week’s Discussion 2.

Thomas, E. F., McGarty, C., & Mavor, K. I. (2009). Transforming “apathy into movement”: The role of prosocial emotions in motivation action for social change. Personality & Social Psychology Review, 13(4), 310–333.
Retrieved from the Walden Library databases.

Kezar, A. (2014). Higher education change and social networks: A review of the research. Journal of Higher Education, 85(1), 91–125.
Retrieved from the Walden Library databases.

Aguinis, H., & Glavas, A. (2012). What we know and don’t know about corporate social responsibility: A review and research agenda. Journal of Management, 38(4), 932–968.
Retrieved from the Walden Library databases.

Walden University. (2015). Social change. Retrieved from https://www.waldenu.edu/about/social-change
As you review this website, think about Walden’s meaning of social change and how this website will guide you as you consider positive social change for your Major Assignment 2.

Document: Excel Video Coding Document Template (Excel spreadsheet)
Review this Excel template as you view this week’s media programs. Also, you will use this template for organizing your transcripts and preparing them for coding.

Required Media

Laureate Education (Producer). (2016). Introduction to coding [Video file]. Baltimore, MD: Author.
Note: The approximate length of this media piece is 10 minutes.
In this media program, Dr. Susan Marcus, Core Research Faculty with the School of Psychology at Walden University, introduces you to the world of coding using Word or Excel documents. In this first video, you will learn how to organize your data.

Welcome to Week Five!

Posted on: Sunday, September 23, 2018 9:57:15 PM EDT

We are now arriving at an important – even critical – part of the qualitative process: how to collect data and how to prepare it for analysis.

If you recall from your quantitative research course, you would collect your data using surveys that were either inherently numeric, or could be assigned a numeric designation. For example, a Likert scale would assign various possible answers on a 1 to 7 scale, or you could assign a number to a category, such as female=1 and male = 2. You would then prepare the data by looking at scatterplots and removing outliers, deleting incomplete data, determining means, and other preliminary work in preparation for the statistical analysis. In qualitative research, we also collect and prepare the data in specific ways, but which are very different from the quantitative data collection and preparation process I just described.

In qualitative research, we look for ‘meaning’ and patterns of speech that can indicate themes. We start by carefully listening to, viewing, and/or reading our content in a highly reflective manner. This means that we do not take the information the participant’s provided us at face value, but we think more deeply about it to see what exists ‘between the lines’ of what the participant had to say. We start by looking out for words, phrases, and overall concepts that tell us something about what the participant felt or experienced. We choose a word or phrase that best defines that feeling or experience. We make a note of it and indicate the portion of the content where it was found. For example:

Participant content: “I was terribly afraid of what would happen next. I felt so powerless. I was all so new to me. I had no idea what to do next. I was confused and in shock.”
Researcher coding: afraid, powerless, unique (relates to new), confused, shocked

Note how the code words can often be an exact word from the transcript, but it can also be another word that also relates to the overall concept. Coding is a process of identifying concepts that might tell us what the participant has experienced. Do not just list words that are repeated – seek words that have meaning – that express the lived subjective experience by the participant. Seek out the emotion.

Discussion 1 (due Wednesday) gives us a very basic sense of how to code. Note that in a real research study, this process would be much more complicated and time consuming, requiring a great deal of content organization and management skills. For this assignment, simply view the video and take note about any content that stands out to you that indicates what is being experienced, felt, and/or perceived by the participant.

Be careful – it’s not about what non-participants are experiencing, and it’s not about your analysis of what you are seeing or hearing, at this point. It’s about what the participant is experiencing, relative to the scenario she or he is describing.

Do not use words just because they stand out or are repeated, but because they seem to indicate some kind of meaning, perception, or feeling BY THE PARTICIPANT. Refer to your field notes that you have been keeping over the past few weeks to help you with this. Next, review your notes and the video transcripts and develop a few code words that describe the overall lived experience. Then, connect each code word to a phrase, sentence, or passage in the video in order to justify that code word.

For example:

Code word: Afraid (participant indicated fear)

Transcript support: “I was terribly frightened of what would happen next.”

Here are the required headings for discussion 1:

Video name

Code words (list each code and the phrase or sentence from the video that it describes) (focus on behaviors and feelings of the participant, not things, categories, or lists … and not the people that the participant might be talking about, other than what the participant feels about them. Keep repeating in your mind, “It is all about what the participant is experiencing.”).

Discuss (discuss your coding process and how you arrived at your codes. Be sure to include the transcript source and your field notes source in this description)

Reflection/Questions (discuss any insights or ask questions regarding this process)