Types of Coding

Coding can be performed in different ways and at different times of the qualitative data analysis. Below are some of the types of coding described in more detail;

Open coding: Strauss & Cobin (1990, p64), describe open coding as “the process of breaking down, examining, comparing, conceptualising and categorising data.”

Further, Ryan and Bernard (2003, p88) refers to as “act of finding themes [as] what grounded theorists call open coding and what classic content analysts call qualitative analysis (Berelson 1952) or latent coding (Shapiro and Markoff 1997).” Strauss (1987), describes every interpretation as tentative at this point of the data analysis. It forces the researcher to fracture, break data apart analytically and leads to the inevitable payoff of grounded conceptualisation. Guides to open coding; p30-32;

 What study are these data pertinent to? (research question)

 What category does this incident indicate? What part of the emerging theory?

Author Definition

Weston et al (2001)

Views a coding system as a critical analysis tool leading to an evolution in data understanding. Furthermore, it is a way for storing the process followed for the data analysis for easier repetition of the study and verification purposes.

Singh (2007)

Coding is defined as the process of conceptualizing research data and classifying them into meaningful and relevant categories for the purpose of data analysis and interpretation

Strauss (1987, p27) Describes coding as the “discovering and naming of categories”.

Kvale & Brinkman (2009), and Ryan &

Bernard (2003),

Describe coding as involving attaching keywords to a text segment in order to permit later identification of a statement concerned with identifying a wide range of themes as possible and then be concerned with themes that are considered important for further studies.

Seale (1999, p154), is “an attempt to fix meaning, constructing a particular vision of the world that excludes other possible viewpoints.”

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 What is actually happening in the data? Problems faced by participants.

 Analyse the data minutely. Important for extensive theory coverage. Overview approach.

 Frequently interrupt the coding to write a theoretical memo. This moves the analyst further from the data into the more analytic realm

 Analyst must not assume the analytic relevance of any traditional variable (age, sex, social class, and place) until it emerges as relevant.

Thematic coding: Robson (2011, p465), describes thematic coding in the following manner;

 All parts of the data are coded and labelled.

 Codes with the same level are grouped together as a theme.

 Codes and themes occurring in the data can be determined inductively from reviewing the data and/ or from relevance to your research questions.

 Themes serve as a basis for further data analysis and interpretation.

 Makes substantial use of summaries of the themes, supplemented by matrices, network maps, flow charts and diagrams.

 Can be used on a purely descriptive or exploratory basis, or within a variety or theoretical frameworks.

Axial coding: Strauss (1987, p32), views axial coding as involving “intense analysis done around one category at a time” [conditions, consequences and so forth]. Helps obtain knowledge about relationships within and between categories.

Selective coding: Strauss (1987) views selective coding as coding systematically and concertedly for the core category. Done when all other subordinate categories and subcategories become systematically linked with the core. It is more self-consciously systematic that is open coding.

Sociologically Constructed codes and in vivo codes: Strauss (1987), Sociologically constructs are derived directly from the terms used by actors in that field. Also, they depend on the researcher’s scholarly and field knowledge. While in vivo codes are behaviours and processes. How the basic problem is resolved of processed.

73 3.3.3.3 Cutting and Sorting

Ryan and Bernard (2003, p94) describes cutting and sorting as involving “identifying quotes or expressions that seem somehow important and then arranging the quotes/expressions into piles of things that go together.” The coding is performed for each question; responses compared to the question and then clustered into groups concepts. This is an iterative process striving to have the least number of concepts possible. Further, Ryan and Bernard (2003), present a selection amongst theme identification techniques (see Table 8). For this study the researcher uses the following techniques for keyword and theme identification;

Table 8: Theme identification techniques.

Easy Difficult

Repetitions Indigenous Typologies

Similarities and Differences Word Lists & Key Words in Context

Cutting and sorting Word Co-Occurrence

Since this study is driven by the grounded theory, coding for this data analysis will be data driven as opposed to concept driven. Furthermore, coding for these interviews follows Weston et al. (2001) approach since it aims to build a rich understanding of the nature of each participant’s responses and allows us to aggregate the data to search for patterns. After themes have been discovered, similar themes are clustered and their relationships are written down (similarities and differences).

Word Lists and Key-word-in-context

The researcher identified all the unique words in a text and counts the number of times each occurs as suggested by Bernard & Wayne (2010). Additionally, the researcher looked for the use of industry specific terms. Thus for this study the use of more industry specific terms may be interpreted as more design awareness and vice versa. After the cutting and sorting process, data was better organised therefore the researcher in better position to identify words and the number of times each word occurs.

74 Word Co-occurrence

Bernard & Wayne (2010) describes the approach as coming from linguistic and semantic network analysts. It is based on the premise that words commonly occur with other words to form a particular idea. This process was not used to analyse the text since the study is only interested in the explanation of what, how, when of the design processes; not linguistics and semantics.

Ideally the coding process has to be repeated until there is few additions and changes,” Weston et al. (2001, p391). The coding is supposed to allow evaluation of each participant against the objectives of the study and further allow the researcher to see patterns across multiple interviews. Furthermore, Weston et al. describes continuing “to confer until eventually few new or revised codes surfaced.” Also, Ryan and Bernard (2003, p89) observes that “The more the same concept occurs in the text, the more likely it's a theme.”

As with all qualitative studies the subjectivity of the responses makes it harder to consider scientific rigor. However, but the objectivity of the researcher in the study will be critical to allowing the responses to arise from the data.