Group items tagged

s: qualitative research

efore presenting MAYRING's qualitative content analysis, a short overview of the basic assumptions and definitions of qualitative research will be given.

"word qualitative implies an emphasis on the qualities of entities and on processes and meanings that are not experimentally examined or measured (if measured at all) in terms of quantity, amount, intensity, or frequency"

4.2.2 Philipp MAYRING's approach

short introduction to the main points of MAYRING's qualitative content analysis. Its development (Section 4.2.2.1), basic ideas (Section 4.2.2.2), procedures (Section 4.2.2.3) and quality criteria

following definition of qualitative content analysis: "an approach of empirical, methodological [sic!] controlled analysis of texts within their context of communication, following content analytical rules and step by step models, without rash quantification"

the strength of qualitative content analysis is that it is strictly controlled methodologically and that the material is analyzed step-by-step. Central to it is a category system which is developed right on the material employing a theory-guided procedure

we said that qualitative content analysis aims to preserve the advantages of quantitative content analysis but at the same time apply a more qualitative text interpretation (see Section 4.2.2.1). MAYRING (2003, pp.42-46) emphasizes the following central points:

MAYRING has developed a sequential model of qualitative content analysis and puts forward three distinct analytical procedures which may be carried out either independently or in combination, depending on the particular research question

4.2.2.3 Method and procedures

Obviously, the central part of the process—structuring—is derived from classical content analysis, because here, too, units of coding and evaluation are set up and arranged in a schema of categories

Figure 1 shows the basic proceeding of qualitative content analysis from the initial theory to the final analysis and interpretation.

Going into greater detail, this process of MAYRING's qualitative content analysis can also be divided into nine different stages