A Beginner's Guide to Coding Qualitative Data

Our video tutorial introduces coding of qualitative data for those just starting out. Tagging or coding qualitative data with codes and themes is one of the most common methods for analysing qualitative data. But how do you do it? What's a code and a theme? How does it work in practice? Our short guide shows this:

The video uses the example of writing a book report to consider aspects of the data that are interesting, and useful to answer a qualitative research question. Codes are described as categories used to group together extracts of text, or quotes. This is illustrated by using cut up text extracts, and keeping them in labelled envelopes. Various different methods and types of coding are discussed as options, for example discourse, narrative and thematic analysis. This overview is not limited to qualitative data analysis software, but also discusses how it can be used in traditional paper and highlighter approaches.

Get started with analysing your qualitative data

You can get a free trial of Quirkos, demonstrated briefly in the video, by clicking the image below. Since this video, we have had many updates, so why not check out our latest version and see if it will help make the qualitative coding process easier?

You can also check out one of our other blog posts on coding:

What’s the difference between qualitative codes and themes?

You’ll see lots of literature on qualitative analysis talk about using both codes and themes, but they are difficult concepts to explain and often the lines between them are blurred.

Quirkos Qualitative Research BlogDaniel Turner

Do I have too many codes in my qualitative analysis?

I’m not going to give you a number, as what is too many for some is just right for others, but there are some red flags that suggest you have too many codes for you to perform a reasonable analysis of your data, and ways to manage your data move on in your analyis.

Quirkos Qualitative Research BlogCathy Gibbons

Managing qualitative coding systems

In this blog post, I’m going to try and persuade you to do something really boring. Develop a formal process to record your analysis journey, and the coding systems you have.

Quirkos Qualitative Research BlogDaniel Turner