Coding In-depth Semistructured Interviews

Many social science studies are based on coded in-depth semistructured interview transcripts. But researchers rarely report or discuss coding reliability in this work. Nor is there much literature on the subject for this type of data. This article presents a procedure for developing coding schemes for such data. It involves standardizing the units of text on which coders work and then improving the coding scheme’s discriminant capability (i.e., reducing coding errors) to an acceptable point as indicated by measures of either intercoder reliability or intercoder agreement. This approach is especially useful for situations where a single knowledgeable coder will code all the transcripts once the coding scheme has been established. This approach can also be used with other types of qualitative data and in other circumstances.

[1]  Michael Goldman,et al.  Learning by Example: Imitation and Innovation at a Global Bank , 2011 .

[2]  Linda S. Lotto.  Qualitative Data Analysis: A Sourcebook of New Methods , 1986 .

[3]  Sally Young Conrad.  Making Ends Meet: How Single Mothers Survive Welfare and Low-Wage Work , 1997 .

[4]  H. Russell Bernard,et al.  Social Research Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches , 2000 .

[5]  Klaus Krippendorff,et al.  On the Reliability of Unitizing Continuous Data , 1995 .

[6]  A Furedi,et al.  Hard choices. , 1999, Conscience.

[7]  John L. Campbell,et al.  The National Origins of Policy Ideas: Knowledge Regimes in the United States, France, Germany, and Denmark , 2014 .

[8]  Janice McCabe,et al.  Doing Multiculturalism: An Interactionist Analysis of the Practices of a Multicultural Sorority , 2011 .

[9]  R. Weber.  Basic Content Analysis , 1986 .

[10]  Daniel Riffe,et al.  A Content Analysis of Content Analyses: Twenty-Five Years of Journalism Quarterly , 1997 .

[11]  C. Silver,et al.  Using Software in Qualitative Research: A Step-by-Step Guide , 2007 .

[12]  F. Al-Shamali,et al.  Author Biographies. , 2015, Journal of social work in disability & rehabilitation.

[13]  Randy Hodson,et al.  Analyzing Documentary Accounts , 1999 .

[14]  E. R. Morrissey.  Sources of Error in the Coding of Questionnaire Data , 1974 .

[15]  A. Strauss,et al.  The Discovery of Grounded Theory , 1967 .

[16]  W. Neuman,et al.  Social Research Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches , 2002 .

[17]  W. Wilson,et al.  Book Review: When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor , 1997 .

[18]  P. Chisnall.  Qualitative Interviewing: The Art of Hearing Data , 1996 .

[19]  Michaela DeSoucey,et al.  Gastronationalism: Food Traditions and Authenticity Politics in the European Union , 2010 .

[20]  Valerie J. Caracelli,et al.  Toward a Conceptual Framework for Mixed-Method Evaluation Designs , 1989 .

[21]  Herbert Snyder,et al.  Qualitative interviewing: The art of hearing data , 1996 .

[22]  G M Raab,et al.  Design and Analysis of Reliability Studies—the Statistical Evaluation of Measurement Errors , 1991 .

[23]  J. Calarco.  “I Need Help!” Social Class and Children’s Help-Seeking in Elementary School , 2011 .

[24]  Michael Useem,et al.  The Inner Circle: Large Corporations and the Rise of Business Political Activity in the U. S. and U.K. , 1986 .

[25]  Philip H. Burch.  The Inner Circle: Large Corporations and the Rise of Business Political Activity in the U.S. and U.K . By Michael Useem. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984. Pp. xii + 246. $22.95.) , 1984, American Political Science Review.

[26]  Roel Popping.  In search of one set of categories , 1992 .

[27]  P. Fahy.  Addressing some Common Problems in Transcript Analysis , 2001 .

[28]  Martha Cleveland-Innes,et al.  Revisiting methodological issues in transcript analysis: Negotiated coding and reliability , 2006, Internet High. Educ..

[29]  Roel Popping,et al.  Some views on agreement to be used in content analysis studies , 2010 .

[30]  Robert Rosenthal,et al.  Judgment Studies: Design, Analysis, and Meta-Analysis , 1987 .

[31]  Thomas Abel,et al.  From Text to Codings: Intercoder Reliability Assessment in Qualitative Content Analysis , 2008, Nursing research.

[32]  Abbas Tashakkori,et al.  Mixed Methodology: Combining Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches , 1998 .

[33]  Maria Kefalas,et al.  Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage , 2005 .

[34]  M. Lombard,et al.  Content Analysis in Mass Communication: Assessment and Reporting of Intercoder Reliability , 2002 .

[35]  M. Zelditch,,et al.  Some Methodological Problems of Field Studies , 1962, American Journal of Sociology.

[36]  Daniel J. Hruschka,et al.  Reliability in Coding Open-Ended Data: Lessons Learned from HIV Behavioral Research , 2004 .

[37]  Klaus Krippendorff,et al.  Content Analysis: An Introduction to Its Methodology , 1980 .

[38]  K. Kurasaki,et al.  Intercoder Reliability for Validating Conclusions Drawn from Open-Ended Interview Data , 2000 .

[39]  H. Rubin,et al.  Qualitative Interviewing (2nd ed.): The Art of Hearing Data , 2005 .

[40]  T. Marteau,et al.  The Place of Inter-Rater Reliability in Qualitative Research: An Empirical Study , 1997 .

[41]  Paula England,et al.  Unmarried couples with children: Hoping for love and the white picket Fence , 2007 .

[42]  D. Nohrstedt,et al.  THE NATIONAL ORIGINS OF POLICY IDEAS : KNOWLEDGE REGIMES IN THE UNITED STATES, FRANCE, GERMANY, AND DENMARK , 2015 .