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Open coding

In qualitative research, analysis often focus on quotations, segments of the material which present an insight or information. A code is a simplification of the idea or insight. Open coding refers to coding the material without a pre-defined code list. Instead, potential codes emerge during the analysis process. Thus, it is an inductive approach, where the aim is to let the data speak for itself.

There are many genres of open coding: thematic analysis, grounded theory, frame analysis, among others. Each involve their own terminology and conventions how to analyse and present methods, sometimes specific to disciplinary practices. However, the methods often involve stages such as:

  1. familiarizing with the material and conducting open coding
  2. discussing with colleagues about the codes and clarifying their meanings
  3. conducting additional coding after discussion
  4. summarizing open codes by organizing and grouping them
  5. reporting findings

How you conduct open coding depends on your specific field of study and its established practices, as well as the methodological choices. Computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software can support wide range of approaches for this work.

Thematic analysis

Thematic analysis (Broun & Clarke, 2006) seeks to find "something important about the data in relation to the research question, and represents some level of patterned response or meaning within the data set." This is fairlys loose: thematic analysis tells something about the material through coding it (which for Broun & Clarke can be inductive or deductive; i.e., open or closed). Furthermore, what is a theme can also vary: themes may be more semantic -- i.e., focusing on what and how things are described -- or more latent aspects -- i.e., interpreting what is told. Thematic analysis focus on phases:

  1. working to transcribe the data and make initial observations
  2. coding the data systematically
  3. seek to combine codes into (potential) themes
  4. reviewing (potential) themes by examining codes, corresponding quotes and even whole material
  5. define and name the themes from the materials
  6. reporting findings

Grounded theory

Grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss; Glaser; Strauss & Corbin) aims to develop theoretical insights from the material. It is based on examining the material and conducting coding of the material in stages:

  1. open coding to examine and familiarize with the materials
  2. axial coding to examine, group and merge open codes to categories and concepts
  3. selective coding to scope the research project to chosen concepts and examining the phenomena from these lenses.

The goal is to increase the abstraction level of the analysis during these stages: whereas open codes are grounded to the data, axial codes, concepts, and categories are more abstract. Therefore, the aim of the process is to develop a new theory based on the data.

An important aspect in theory-development is making memos about thoughts and observations throughout the data analysis process. These seek to elaborate observations on the meaning of codes and their relationships. One goal with these is the ability to trace back how codes, quotations, concepts etc. were developed and what is their intended meaning.

Grounded theory is a well-adapted methodological framework, however it has various different ways to approach and use it within a specific research process (Birks et al., 2013, Ralph et al., 2015).

What is a good code?

This depends on your research interests. There are two common pitfalls: either not coding data sufficiently or then conducting too fine-grained analysis, where the coding does not summarise data. While it is impossible to provide a universal guideline for this, I would be scared if a sentence had several overlapping codes. I would also be scared if most paragraphs had no codes.

What about validity?

Open coding is always based on interpretations. Depending on how approach your research problem, different approaches may be helpful to be incorporated into the analysis process, such as being reflexive about the analysis process, seeking to find evidence to disconfirm observations or involving other researchers in the process (for more, see Creswell & Miller, 2000).

Example papers

Sometimes it is easier to understand how the methods are used by examining papers showing how it has been used. The papers have been chosen so that the teaching team has been involved in analysing and writing them and we are happy to discuss any details in these and show how computers were used in write-up of this process.

Computational tools for open coding approach

Additional reading