DES 230 - Coding Data and CAQDAS

What does it mean to clean your data?

• They happen in relation to other activities or events
• To prepare it for analysis.
• Coding for patterns in the data (Gender, Age)
• They happen the same way

What are the three things in the process of cleaning your data?

• To prepare it for analysis.
• Some codes are sub-categories of other codes. Can help with data organization on different levels.
• Summarizes primary topic of the excerpt
• Organizing your data, Curating your data, and Anonymizing your data

What do you mean by "organize your data"?

• What did participants point out that you didn't expect? What commonalities exist in the data set?
• Is everything where it should be? Anything need Classification? Anything hard to read or incomplete? Anything need to be transcribed? Any observations that should be annotations?
• Highlighters and sticky notes
• You have an ethical and professional obligation to ensure your data is cleaned before it is shared.

What do you mean by "curating your data"?

• Almost always best practice to anonymize your data.
• What themes can be drawn from the research question? What points were you looking to capture?
• Any notes that are incomplete or incorrect? Any notes that aren't appropriate for the final report?
• Coding is the process of identifying patterns and themed in a qualitative data set.

What are the dangers of the "curating the data" stage?

• They happen in predictably different ways
• Helps take some of the heavy lifting of coding off your shoulders
• Bias!
• Organizing your data, Curating your data, and Anonymizing your data

Why is bias dangerous?

• What you think is unimportant is a judgement call, and be reflective of your implicit bias.
• Some codes are sub-categories of other codes. Can help with data organization on different levels.
• It allows you to recognize context and subjectivity while conducting research in a systematic manner
• If you know the product well or are involved in the design, you can offer suggestions; otherwise, just identity patterns and issues.

What do you mean by "Anonymizing your data"?

• In-Vivo coding
• Do not share raw data!
• Organize your appendix by code, mirroring your analysis, and including only the coded segments.
• Removing all existing identifiable references and replace them with something general.

What is a Key?

• They happen the same way
• Coding is the process of identifying patterns and themed in a qualitative data set.
• Used to keep track of who is who in anonymized data.
• Because you're linking data together, not just labeling data.

What is it best practice to do with data?

• Almost always best practice to anonymize your data.
• Coding that uses participants' own language
• Summarizes primary topic of the excerpt
• They happen in a certain order

What do you mean when you "Code" Data?

• Coding that uses participants' own language
• When you apply multiple codes to the same text.
• One appears to cause another
• Coding is the process of identifying patterns and themed in a qualitative data set.