Qualitative research uses non-digital evidence to support a hypothesis.It can include focus groups, documents, records, or interviews. These types of evidence add color to research, rather than just focusing on numbers.
Coding the interview allows you to structure and explain your findings. Figuring out how to encode interview data will enable you to conduct research in an orderly manner and produce more rigorous research. To do this, you must know how to encode interview records.
What is coding in qualitative research?
The process of encoding the qualitative data you collect is an important part of your analysis in the qualitative research process. Generating usable data from qualitative data requires you to explain, organize, and structure your observations and any explanations from you or your research subjects.
The advantage of coding is that you can be more rigorous and rigorous in your research. However, to successfully code the interview, you must make a transcript. If you don’t get a complete transcript first, you won’t be able to encode your qualitative data.
Why are interviews useful for qualitative research?
Qualitative data brings color to academic and business reports. You gain a real-world perspective, provide background, and make the research report more readable. People are attracted by human interest rather than a string of numbers.
Interviews are one of the best ways to obtain data directly from the source. Researchers can conduct interviews and analysis to obtain stories from the grassroots. These stories make the conclusions of the research more affinity and attractive.
An example of interview analysis may involve approaching someone with a unique story to gain a unique perspective. In addition, obtaining these views helps you maintain the integrity of your content and avoid falling into the trap of beautification.
Before discussing how to analyze interview data, which types of research do these views work best for?
First, obtaining qualitative data through interviews can benefit academic research focused on specific communities. They can also help with business research that focuses on the target audience, such as focus groups for a particular product or product type.
The interviews brought the otherwise bland research to life. Taking time to collect qualitative data should be considered essential.
How to analyze interview data
Subject analysis is a commonly used method for analyzing qualitative data such as interviews and records. The researchers carefully checked the data to come up with a common theme.
If you are looking for a good way to analyze interview data, especially to determine people’s views, experiences, values or opinions to develop interview records, then subject analysis is one of the best methods.
Once you choose to use thematic analysis, there are still some methods to consider: induction and deduction.
In this section, you will learn about the use of deduction or induction for interview data analysis.
Analyze transcripts by induction and deduction
If you decide to use thematic analysis, you will first check whether your data is biased. You also need to have a broad impression of the data. When using thematic methods to process your data, there is no predetermined framework involved.
As mentioned above, your goal is to determine the common theme of the entire material. Look for a common pattern that condenses your data.
The challenge involved in subject analysis is to make every response meaningful. It is important not to be bothered by the details. Highlight key areas found in other areas of your research.
So, what is the difference between deductive analysis and inductive analysis?
Deductive analysis does require a predetermined framework. You have to treat it from a structured point of view. Before conducting interview data analysis, categories will be established in advance. The researchers will then analyze their data and plot the connections found in the data.
On the other hand, inductive analysis does not require a predetermined framework. The purpose of induction is to develop a theory, while the purpose of deduction is to test an existing theory. If there is not much information about a topic, inductive research is usually carried out because there is no theory to test.
The analysis of qualitative data is always more challenging than the analysis of quantitative data.You must be careful not to let one or more personal stories affect the entire research. There are also your own prejudices and misunderstandings to be taken into account.
Researchers must put their initial impressions aside and maintain a neutral point of view in order to correctly draw reliable conclusions from qualitative data.
In the process of conducting interviews and publishing research reports, losing basic facts is a common trap.Detailed transcription is essential to convey information to other members of the team and maintain the overall integrity of the research.
Encoding interview records is not particularly difficult, but if you don’t have the right tools, it can be time-consuming.
How to write interview record code
There are several steps to follow to learn how to code a qualitative interview. To reach the point where transcripts can be successfully encoded, you must create a transcript for every interview you conduct.
Step 1-Transcribe your interview with Sonix
Creating transcripts for many interviews and focus groups used to require a lot of long-term work.Today, artificial intelligence is a game changer, and Sonix is a pioneer in low-cost automatic transcription software driven by artificial intelligence.
Insert your audio or video file into Sonix, upload it, and let us create your transcript in a few minutes. We provide the most accurate software options in the industry, and you can edit out any errors at the end of the process.
Hundreds of hours of work are usually required in large-scale research, which can now be completed in one day.
The second step-the first round of coding passed
The next step in how to code the interview records is to conduct the first round of review. You will start reading your data and assign different codes to various parts of the interview you did.
At this stage, your code does not need to be perfect, because they will evolve as you progress further. Initially, you need to decide which parts of the data are encoded and the name of each encoding.
Here are some examples of coding skills you can use when you first study how to code for an interview.
In Vivo coding-use the participants’ own words, not your explanation as a project researcher. This form of coding is designed to be loyal to the original meaning and meaning.
Process coding-This type of coding uses code to capture an action. Most of the time, these codes will end with “ing”.
Open coding-through this form of coding, you will break up your qualitative data and create smaller excerpts. Your coding will be loose and more tentative, focusing on definitions, categories, labels, and descriptions.
Descriptive coding-Summarize your transcripts and create a description that accurately reflects each interview.Your code will focus on the overall content of the interview.
Structure coding-Classify parts of your transcript according to a specific structure. Researchers prefer this coding method when dealing with large-scale studies with many interviews that need to be analyzed.
Value coding-Value coding focuses on personal attitudes, beliefs, and values.
Synchronous coding-when you become more experienced, you can choose to use several coding systems on the same set of qualitative data.
When researching how to encode interview records, the type of coding system you decide to use depends on the nature of your research, the participants, and the purpose you want to achieve.
Step 3-Create categories and sub-codes
Once you have completed the first pass and specified your encoding type, you can start creating categories. A category is a simple set of codes.
Organizing these categories depends on your learning and research methods. Some people may group similar codes or associate them based on a general concept or a topic.
It usually takes trial and error to find a structure that makes sense for your interview data analysis.
Step 4-Complete further coding rounds
The initial coding process was considered fast and loose. Further coding rounds involve re-examining these codes and categories. You can recode, reclassify, or rename your code at each stage.
The subsequent rounds of coding are to find more patterns, re-analyze your qualitative data, and move towards the development of concepts and theories.
You will find that when you pass each round, your number of codes will decrease. Remember, you are actively looking for how best to coherently code your interview.
Because there are so many coding methods, it is common for researchers to encounter difficulties in the later coding process. Here are some examples of different coding types you may choose to apply.
Thematic analysis
The purpose of using topic analysis for coding is to find recurring topics and patterns in your qualitative data. With each round of coding, new trends appear, and you can start to merge coding.
Topic analysis may also lead to pattern coding, which involves classifying excerpts with similar coding into an overall coding.
Another type of coding that is usually paired with subject analysis is axis coding. Through axis coding, coding and categories are based on the relationships found in each round of coding.
Focus on coding
Centralized coding, or selective coding, involves finalizing a set of categories and codes based on your initial coding process.You may have used open coding when you first used a centralized coding system.
Qualitative data should be recoded according to your final code table.This list is unshakable and should not be deviated from.
Theoretical coding
Using theoretical coding involves creating a concept and classifying/organizing coding based on this concept.The way you organize codes and categories will be related to what you find when analyzing qualitative data.It is this that has led to the development of theory.
Well-designed coding
If you are conducting follow-up research based on another foundation, explanatory coding will be your preferred system.
The task of detailed coding is to determine whether your current coding and category are related to previous research.
Step 5-Create your final narrative
You will not be bound by a single coding system. It is considered a best practice to perform multiple encoding types to finalize your encoding/category and create a final description.
Your final result depends on the type and purpose of your research. It can be a theory, a narrative, or your discovery.
You will develop your findings and use coding and categories in your conclusions to build your narrative. This process enables other researchers to follow up on your coding throughout the interview process to challenge and readjust your theory.
Use Sonix to make it easier to create interview records
Coding is an important part of any research that uses qualitative data to develop theories, narratives, or conclusions. The coding process can be highly in-depth, which means it takes time to find the right system for you.
