qca2sampling and units of analysis

8/13/2019 QCA2Sampling and Units of Analysis

1/11

Sampling and Units of

AnalysisMaking the Basic Decisions for

a Content Analysis Project


2/11

Basic Considerations

Content analysis requires sufficient datadesired content may be scattered thinlyanalysis may require large volume of data

Absence is as important as presenceneed to compare presence with absenceneed to understand context of presence

Finding the right balancehow much data the research requireswhat is feasible for one person to do


3/11


4/11

When Not to Sample

you have only a limited amount of data

the data source is complete in itself

you need the entire set to make the casethere is sufficient internal variability

the data set is unique or has special properties

you will do primarily qualitative analysis

it is feasible to include the entire set


5/11

Two Content Analysis Strategies

Traditional procedure (hypothesis testing)develop codes on a samplethrow out that sampleapply fixed codes to the rest of the data

Contemporary approach (exploratory)start with small sample for familiarityexpand gradually but use all the material

develop codes and analysis iterativelyUsually need to begin with exploratoryUsually not testing a clear hypothesis


6/11

Get Started with a Test Sample

purpose is to become familiar with datafind out what is POSSIBLE

what content does it contain?what questions could you answer with it?how can you extract relevant content?how much effort does it take?

to plan a feasible research projectstart with a few cases of the text data


7/11

Sampling Unit vs. Unit of Analysis

Sample the form the data source providesUnit of Analysis can be smaller

sampling texts, using sentence or paragraphsampling films, using scenessampling events, using phases, relations, etc.sampling interactions, using exchanges

Unit of analysis CONTAINS what you wantUnit of analysis defines N or denominator


8/11

Determining Units of Analysis

Level of the phenomenon of interesthow does it appear in the material?what context is needed to interpret it?

Are there already natural units to the datadoes it come in small pieces already?are there clear internal divisions?are larger units appropriate to the task?

Will the volume of data be appropriatewill you have enough cases to analyze? can you manage that much coding?


9/11

Multiple and Nested Units

Counting incidencecan count every incident and sum for unitcan count presence/absence in larger unit

Flexible units such as time periodscode in individual data unitscan combine units later to clarify patterns

Comparison between sets of datacode units for two or more sets of datacombine data by set for analysis


10/11

Unit of Analysis vs Coding Unit

Unit of Analysiswhat you code WITHINwhat you compare in the analysisyou can combine but not divide units later

Coding Unitswhat you actually code for each unit of analysislevel at which something is describedyou can combine but not divide codes later

Scale of these two determines coding time


11/11

Three Basic Principles

Make units only as small as necessaryfor the type of coding you will dofor the type of analysis you will do

Code everything you need for every casecode characteristics of the units as contextcode at the level you can see in the data

You can combine later but you cannot divideUnits of analysis can be combined easilyCodes can also be combined easilyDividing requires going back and starting over

qca2sampling and units of analysis

Documents