The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers

Product Information

A flat coding frame assigns the same level of specificity and importance to each code. While this might feel like an easier and faster method for manual coding, it can be difficult to organize and navigate the themes and concepts as you create more and more codes. It also makes it hard to figure out which themes are most important, which can slow down decision making. Hierarchical Coding Frame

Department of Social Work, Education and Community Wellbeing, Northumbria University & NIHR ARC North East- North Cumbria, Newcastle, UK Røsstad T, Garåsen H, Steinsbekk A, Håland E, Kristoffersen L, Grimsmo A. Implementing a care pathway for elderly patients, a comparative qualitative process evaluation in primary care. BMC Health Serv Res. 2015;15(1):86.

Access

Finally, values coding involves coding that relates to the participant’s worldviews . Typically, this type of coding focuses on excerpts that reflect the values, attitudes, and beliefs of the participants. Values coding is therefore very useful for research exploring cultural values and intrapersonal and experiences and actions.

Description: What practices have changed as the result of interventions and their components being operationalized, enacted, reproduced, over time and across settings? [ 11] Content analysis: This refers to the categorization, tagging and thematic analysis of qualitative data. This can include combining the results of the analysis with behavioural data for deeper insights.Description: How do people distinguish interventions and their components from their current ways of working? [ 40]. A structural reformat has increased accessibility; the 3 sections from the previous edition are now spread over 15 chapters for easier sectional reference

Example:‘The analysis centres on English primary care and in particular on the issue of how healthcare professions are affected by, and in turn affect, the interpretation and adoption of new services. We use the case of the implementation of evidence-based approaches for managing patients with osteoarthritis. This musculoskeletal problem occurs in a high proportion of GP consultations, and is projected to increase due to a rapidly ageing population in the western world’ [ 29].

Sage: Upper Footer (AU)

Before you start qualitative data coding, you need to decide which codes you’ll use. What is Deductive Coding? Working through the procedures described above led to part A of the coding manual for NPT. This is presented in Table 1 and consists of 12 primary NPT constructs. Although it was not originally intended to do so, we found that the final structure of the coding manual sits easily alongside the Context-Mechanism-Outcome configuration of realist evaluation studies [ 54]. We describe this in Fig. 1. The array of primary NPT constructs took the following form. Saldaña’s many examples are very helpful, showing how particular data segments can be coded. Where this was particularly helpful was in the otherwise unclear discussion of selecting the appropriate coding method(s) for a particular study to start Chapter 3. That chapter alone describes 33 choices of “first cycle coding methods,” those that happen during the initial stages of data analysis. Arguably it is difficult to provide a concise answer to that question, because quite obviously the decision rests on many factors related to the researcher and the phenomenon researched. It was therefore interesting to see a short example of how an interview excerpt could be coded using descriptive codes (what is being talked about), in vivo codes (derived from the actual language used) and process coding (conceptual actions relayed by participants), each producing different yet equally valid insights about qualitative data. How do people work together to create networks of participation and communities of practice around interventions and their components? [ 11]

Hall A, Wilson CB, Stanmore E, Todd C. Implementing monitoring technologies in care homes for people with dementia: a qualitative exploration using normalization process theory. Int J Nurs Stud. 2017;72:60–70. To recap, the aim of initial coding is to understand and familiarise yourself with your data , to develop an initial code set (if you’re taking an inductive approach) and to take the first shot at coding your data . The coding approaches above allow you to arrange your data so that it’s easier to navigate during the next stage, line by line coding (we’ll get to this soon). De-duplication and disambiguation. The taxonomy of 149 statements assembled in selection and structuring work included multiple duplicates, along with ambiguous and overlapping descriptions of constructs. CRM identified duplicate, ambiguous, and overlapping constructs. These were then either disambiguated or eliminated. After this work was competed, 38 discrete constructs were retained to make up a ‘first pass’ coding manual (the ‘first pass’ coding manual is presented in the online supplementary material).

Social

Before you begin coding, plan out the steps you will take and the coding approach and technique(s) you will follow to avoid inconsistencies. Example:‘Data provision by the laboratories proved to be difficult despite the standardized format. The database manager at the central level reported he had to put much effort in getting the data from the system administrator from the laboratories because they did not prioritize data delivery. It was reported by them that saving the data extraction queries, as the research group suggested, for use in the next time period was increasingly helpful in the course of the implementation period. By fine-tuning these queries after each extraction, the quality of the delivered data improved’ [ 35]. Translating a set of theoretical constructs into a theory-informed coding manual for qualitative data analysis involves a series of tasks that are, in themselves, a form of qualitative analysis. Qualitative research focuses on the identification, characterisation, and interpretation of empirical regularities or deviant cases in natural language data. The process described here developed organically and opportunistically through these different tasks, as they were conducted, and through discussion amongst authors of this paper. The work of defining key constructs of the theory, assembling these into a framework, and then transforming them into a workable coding manual, was informed by the qualitative content analysis procedures described by Schreier [ 2]. Further disambiguation. Pilot work demonstrated that the main elements of the ‘first pass’ coding manual were workable in practice. The piloting exercise revealed that the first pass coding manual was hard to use because it was over-complex and because it micro-managed the process of interpretation. This defeated attempts at nuanced interpretation. Additional work to disambiguate constructs and eliminate overlapping or redundant ones was therefore undertaken as we worked through steps 5–8, below. May C, Myall M, Lund S, Campling N, Bogle S, Dace S, et al. Managing patient preferences and clinical responses in acute pathophysiological deterioration: what do clinicians think treatment escalation plans do? Soc Sci Med. 2020;258:113143.