Types of Coding Procedures

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As I continued reading Corbin and Strauss, I wanted to understand the principles that underlie the different types of coding procedures in order to see how I can fit the data I have gathered so far. This is a summary of what I understood.

Open Coding-

It is the process of breaking down, examining, comparing, conceptualizing and categorizing data. This is the first step in the procedure of text interpretation. The goal is to develop concepts based on the data and also on the researcher's contextual knowledge. During the process, comparisons must be made and questions formulated, while open coding starts with the analysis of single passages of text and phrases. The following questions occupy the initial stages of the coding process:

1. What actually happens in the text?
2. What category does the textual passage suggest?

After this, there will be a search for "in vivo" codes (interpretations recognizable in the text itself). Open coding should analyze very exactly and investigate the text with microscopic presicion in order to minimize the risk of overlooking important categories. During this process, theory memos should be written to record the development of concepts, categories and dimensions.

The asking of questions, the precise analysis of words, phases and sentences together with a continuous process of comparison. These will increase the theoretical sensitivity and creativity of the coding process.

Axial coding-

This refers to the procedures which on the basis of the above mentioned coding paradigm reassembles the results of open coding by creating nw relationships between concepts. Threfore, it will assist in the refinement and differentation  of already available concepts whereby these fist acquire the status of categories. After open coding, it is normally not yet clear whether a particular concept has to do with a condition , a strategy or a consequence. Each single concept together with its indicators analysed and assigned according to the points of the coding paradigm.

These are the questions that a researcher should ask during the axial coding process:

1. What are the conditions for the events comprised in the concept?
2. How can the interactions between actors be described?
3. What strategies and tactics can be determined?
4. What are the consequences of the event?

During the coding process. which begins with open coding, axial coding becomes increasingly predominant: either individual text locations are extracted and interpreted axially or several text locations are interpreted in comparison with one another. In such cases, the procedure is similar to open coding this is to formulate a question, dimensionalize. etc.

In axial coding the properties of a category are first elaborated which means that the category is dimensionalized either implicitly or explicitly. Then assumptions about the condition , interactions, strategies and consequences are specified and tested which increases the relationship to other categories. The links between the categories should be recorded in representation of networks and the investigator should capture in the form of coding notes and theory memos as many as possible of the thoughts which have occured during the process.

Selective coding-

This refers to the process of selecting core categories validating this linking process and the filling of other categories which require further requrement and development. A core category is that cental phenomenon around which all other categories are integrated. As the starting point of this final stage, coding lists, memos and network modls should be reviewed and theoretically sorted.

Strauss and Corbin recommend enquiring about the story contained in the data. The essential events  should be brought  together by answering the following questions:

1. What is the most striking feature of the field of investigation?
2. What do I consider to be the main problem?
3. What is the central theme of the story?
4. Which phenomena are represented again and again in the data?

The central story extracted in this way rotates around the core category and shows its relationships to other categories. In the simplest case, the core category may be recognized from the network model and has already been identified, while the most difficult case it must be completely newly identified, refined with regard with its properties and its location established in the network of relationship. The provisional result should be examined continually with reference to the textual data. In this way, step by step, a grounded theory will emerge.

Grounded Theory Summary

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I have been reading about the Grounded Theory and I have discovered that this type of analysis requires three main elements:

• Asking questions
• Making comparisons
• Defining concepts

I have also found that the Grounded Theory has three levels of concepts:

• Description: Its purpose is to contextualize, persuade and to concince that phenomenons happen within the different variables.
• Conceptual ordering: It organizes data into categories according to the properties and dimensions, types and stages.
• Theorizing: It compares and contrasts the different categories of data in order to draw a valid conclusion  when explaining the phenomenon. Corbin and Strauss state that there should be only one salient category and taken together with other concepts it explains the what, how, when, where and why of the phenomenon.

The following are other important concepts I consider important in order to understand the Grounded Theory:

• Concepts are designations or labels which are attached to individual events or indicators. The researcher must look for indicators of provisional concepts of data.
• The central ideas or sensitizing concepts are transformed into provisional research questions.
• The brainstorming of categories and literature is made, that is, compared and fit in with the research question(s). These are a summary of of collective and abstract concepts which may become releveant for the most varied fields of investigation and types of problems. Only a few indicators will be appropriate and relevant.
• During the process, different indicators are investigated and compared with one another and similarities and differences are considered. On the basis of this analysis of indicators, concepts are finally  specified. Here the theoretical concepts are dimensionalized or determined.
• Changing indicators that generate new properties of a code will proceed only so far before the analysts discover saturation of ideas through the interchangeability of indicators. This means, the more numerous the indicators that are of equal significance for a concept, the higher the degree of saturation of properties of that concept for the emerging theory.
• Concepts are developed, categorized and dimensionalized . They are enriched with indicators  like textual examples or exerpts.
• By means of permanent comparison of the concepts using the associated text units they are categorized, related to each other, ordered, put into hierarchy and dimensionalized. Through this process, the data is broken down into dimensions, while variables are established at different levels.
• During the coding process, the investigator is permanently switching between inductive and deductive thinking, setting up and testing concepts to create hypotheses.