Hot Spot number 2

Another bit of the specification to watch on Unit 1 is….‘Processes involved in content analysis’You need to be able to say what it is, how to do it and know it’s strengths and limitations…

What it is…

Content analysis is a method used to analyse qualitative data. It can be used to extract themes or to change the data into a quantitative form. It can be used on data derived from sources such as newspapers, diaries, or even pictures (to name but a few)

How you do it…

• 1) Become familiar with the source…so read it ( newspaper, letters), look at it in detail ( pictures, photos), or watch it ( video)!
• 2) Pick up coding units from the source, for example if you were looking at how affectionate letters were you might count the number of times an affectionate term such as ‘Sweetheart’ is used. This step is a little like putting the behavioural categories together for an observation
• 3) Go back through the source keeping a tally, highlighting or noting when a theme or category appears.

In the exam they may ask you what one is or how to conduct one. There’s a possibility of being asked about strengths or weaknesses too… so…

The strengths are the amount of detail you can get from such a method and it also means that many different sources can be analysed.

However, it is subjective (opinion based) and can take a long time to analyse.

Any further questions? Just ask!