ABSTRACT
Textual data are different. How do we apply meaning to the content of responses to open-ended questions in questionnaires, interview transcripts or focus-group notes? This is essentially what content analysis does – it applies significance or meaning to information you have collected and helps to identify patterns in the text. Content analysis is an extremely broad area of research – its coverage includes both quantitative and qualitative approaches to analysis. We begin this chapter by focusing on some of the more common quantitative methods before moving on to discuss qualitative approaches to content analysis.
