Content analysis

Draft

Definition

Content analysis is a family of qualitative data analysis methods.

“Content analysis (sometimes called textual analysis when dealing exclusively with text) is a standard methodology in the social sciences for studying the content of communication. Earl Babbie defines it as "the study of recorded human communications, such as books, websites, paintings and laws." Harold Lasswell formulated the core questions of content analysis: "Who says what, to whom, why, to what extent and with what effect?." Ole Holsti (1969) offers a broad definition of content analysis as "any technique for making inferences by objectively and systematically identifying specified characteristics of messages."” (Wikipedia, retrieved nov 1 2007)

See also:

• Computer assisted qualitative research analysis software
• Methodology tutorial - qualitative data analysis

Links

General qualitative methodology indexes

• The Qualitative Report (both a journal and an index)
• QualPage by Judy Norris. Very good site (traditional academic build)
• The qualitative Research Page by Bobbi Kerlin, also maintains the Qualitative ResearchWebring
• Grounded Theory Methodology Karl "Chuck B." Freiherr von Manteuffel ...
• Qualnet, in particular Qualitative Research Resources
• Action Research Sources (by Bob Dick, Southern Cross University)

Slides

• Daniel K. Schneider once made some slides for a crash course on research design in educational technology PDF (ok for starters, but would need some extra work). See the chapter on qualitative data analysis.

Software

For computer-assisted manual analysis, see Computer assisted qualitative research analysis software

For automated analysis, there is a whole range of tools (of which someone should make an inventory). E.g.

• Leximancer (Wiki of a commercial tool)
• Latent semantic analysis software is difficult to find. See: LSA at Colorado for some online tool.
• .... more should be added here.

References

Analysis of on-line interactions

• De Wever, B., Schellens, T., Valcke, M., and Van Keer, H. 2006. Content analysis schemes to analyze transcripts of online asynchronous discussion groups: a review. Comput. Educ. 46, 1 (Jan. 2006), 6-28. DOI= http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2005.04.005

• Naidu, S. and Järvelä, S. 2006. Analyzing CMC content for what?. Computers and Education 46, 1 (Jan. 2006), 96-103. DOI=http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2005.04.001

• Pena-Shaff, J. B. and Nicholls, C. 2004. Analyzing student interactions and meaning construction in computer bulletin board discussions. Computers and Education 42, 3 (Apr. 2004), 243-265. DOI= http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2003.08.003

• Rourke, L., Anderson, T., Garrison, D. R., & Archer, W. (2001). Methodological Issues in the Content Analysis of Computer Conference Transcripts. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education, 12(1), 8-22. PDF

• Schrire, S. 2006. Knowledge building in asynchronous discussion groups: going beyond quantitative analysis. Comput. Educ. 46, 1 (Jan. 2006), 49-70. DOI= http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2005.04.006

• Strijbos, J., Martens, R. L., Prins, F. J., and Jochems, W. M. 2006. Content analysis: what are they talking about?. Computers and Education 46, 1 (Jan. 2006), 29-48. DOI= http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2005.04.002