RESEARCH METHOD COHEN ok

A WORKED EXAMPLE OF CONTENT ANALYSIS 483
an economical means of reducing qualitative data.
Such graphics might serve both to indicate causal
relationships as well as simply summarizing data.
Step 10: Summarizing
By this stage the investigator will be in a
position to write a summary of the main features
of the situation that have been researched so
far. The summary will identify key factors, key
issues, key concepts and key areas for subsequent
investigation. It is a watershed stage during the
data collection, as it pinpoints major themes,
issues and problems that have arisen, so far, from
the data (responsively) and suggests avenues for
further investigation. The concepts used will be
a combination of those derived from the data
themselves and those inferred by the researcher
(Hammersley and Atkinson 1983: 178).
At this point, the researcher will have
gone through the preliminary stages of theory
generation. Patton (1980) sets these out for
qualitative data:
finding a focus for the research and analysis
organizing, processing, ordering and checking
data
writing a qualitative description or analysis
inductively developing categories, typologies
and labels
analysing the categories to identify where
further clarification and cross-clarification are
needed
expressing and typifying these categories
through metaphors (see also Pitman and
Maxwell 1992: 747)
making inferences and speculations about
relationships, causes and effects.
Bogdan and Biklen (1992: 154–63) identify
several important factors that researchers need to
address at this stage, including forcing oneself to
take decisions that will focus and narrow the study
and decide what kind of study it will be; developing
analytical questions; using previous observational
data to inform subsequent data collection; writing
reflexive notes and memos about observations,
ideas, what is being learned; trying out ideas
with subjects; analysing relevant literature while
conducting the field research; generating concepts,
metaphors and analogies and visual devices to
clarify the research.
Step 11: Making speculative inferences
This is an important stage, for it moves the
research from description to inference. It requires
the researcher, on the basis of the evidence, to
posit some explanations for the situation, some
key elements and possibly even their causes. It
is the process of hypothesis generation or the
setting of working hypotheses that feeds into
theory generation.
The stage of theory generation is linked to
grounded theory, and we turn to this later in the
chapter. Here we provide an example of content
analysis that does not use statistical analysis but
which nevertheless demonstrates the systematic
approach to analysing data that is at the heart of
content analysis.
Aworkedexampleofcontentanalysis
In this example the researcher has already
transcribed data concerning stress in the workplace
from, let us say, a limited number of accounts and
interviews with a few teachers, and these have
already been summarized into key points. It is
imagined that each account or interview has been
written up onto a separate file (e.g. computer file),
and now they are all being put together into a
single data set for analysis. What we have are
already-interpreted, rather than verbatim, data.
Stage 1: Extract the interpretive
comments that have been written on the
data
By the side of each, a code/category/descriptor
word has been inserted (in capital letters) i.e. the
summary data have already been collected together
into 33 summary sentences.
Stress is caused by deflated expectation, i.e.
stress is caused by annoyance with other people
Chapter 23